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AN ACCOUNT 



DANES AND NORWEGIANS 



ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. 



AN ACCOUNT 



DANES AND NORWEGIANS 



ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. 



BY J. J. A. WORSAAE, For.F.S.A. London: 

A Royal Commissioner for the Preservation of the National Monuments 
of Denmark; author of "Primaeval Antiquities of Denmark," &c, &c. 



WITH N U M E R O'U S ' W D'- '0 li f& 



LONDON: 
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 

1852. 



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LONDON : 

GEORGE WOODFALL AND SON, 

ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET. 



PREFACE. 



Me. Woksaae informs us in his Introduction that the fol- 
lowing pages were not written solely for the learned. 
They were designed as a popular contribution to a branch of 
historical and antiquarian knowledge, which, though highly 
interesting both to Scandinavians and Englishmen, has 
been hitherto very imperfectly investigated. The English 
reader will find in Mr. Worsaae's work not only many facts 
concerning the early history of this country that are either 
entirely new to him, or placed at least in a wholly novel 
light, but he will also meet with many names whose form 
may appear foreign and unfamiliar. It may, therefore, be 
desirable that on the English reader's introduction to a 
more intimate acquaintance with that Scandinavian race 
which has more claims than he had, perhaps, imagined, 
not only to be regarded as the founders of some of his 
native customs and institutions, but even to be reckoned 
among his forefathers, he should be enabled to pronounce 
their principal names correctly. With this view the fol- 
lowing brief remarks are subjoined ; — 

The double a (aa), frequently occurring in proper names, 
must be sounded like the English diphthong aw, as in 
Blaatand, Haarfager. 

The o, or oe, is pronounced like the French diphthong eu. 

The u, as in German and Italian, is equivalent to oo in 
the English words cool, troop, &c. ; as in Ulf, Huskarl, &c. 



VI PEE FACE. 

C has invariably the sound of k (with which, indeed, it 
is frequently interchanged). The names of Cetel, Oscytel, 
&c, are to be pronounced Ketel, Oskytel. Where c or k 
precedes another consonant, it retains, as in German, its 
distinct and proper power. In order to represent this 
power, Latin and English writers have sometimes sub- 
stituted the syllable ca for the initial c or k ; as, for in- 
stance, in the name of Canute (Dan., Cnut or Knud). 
This has led to the very common error of pronouncing the 
name as if it consisted of two syllables, with an accent 
upon the first; as Can-ute, instead of Canute. 

J has the sound of the English y ; as in Jarl (Yarl, 
earl), Jorvik (Yor-vik, York). 

The consonants th (the Icelandic p*) are pronounced 
like a single t. The word Thing (assizes, &c), which the 
reader will so frequently meet, is sounded like Ting. The 
proper pronunciation is preserved in the word Hits-ting, 
but by altering the spelling. Thus, Thor, Thorkil, &c, 
must be pronounced Tor, Torkil. 

Lastly, the Vikings (Isl., Vikingr, a sea-rover, pirate), 
who played so great a part during the Danish conquests, 
were not Vi-kings, but Vik-ings (Veek-ings) ; so called 
either from the Icelandic Vik (Dan., Vig), a bay of the sea, 
or from Vig, battle, slaughter. 

London, Dec. 15th, 1851. 



* The letter ft has the power of dh. or dth. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



In the spring of 1846, his late Majesty Christian VIII. 
of Denmark determined that an inquiry should be made 
respecting the monuments and memorials of the Danes 
and Norwegians which might be still extant in Scotland 
and the British Islands. His Majesty was the more con- 
firmed in this design as two distinguished British noblemen, 
his Grace the Duke of Sutherland, and his brother Lord 
Francis Egerton (now Earl of Ellesmere), had repeatedly 
stated in their letters to the Royal Society of Northern 
iVntiquaries that, if a Danish archaeologist visited Scot- 
land, he should receive all possible assistance, especially in 
Sutherland, a district so rich in Scandinavian antiquities. 

His Majesty did me the honour to intrust this task to 
me : and the President of the Royal Society of Northern 
Antiquaries, and of the Royal Committee for the preserva- 
tion of the national monuments — our present most gracious 
sovereign Frederick VII. — having, with a lively zeal for 
the promotion of the inquiry, furnished me with several 
letters of introduction, I travelled during a twelvemonth 
(1846-1847) in Scotland, Ireland, and England ; where, 
partly through the personal kindness of the Duke of 
Sutherland and of the Earl of Ellesmere, and partly by 
means of their influential names, I invariably met with the 
best reception and the most valuable assistance in my 
researches. 

a 2 



Vlll AUTHORS PREFACE. 

The present work contains part of the results of that 
journey. My aim in it has been to convey a juster and 
less prejudiced notion than prevails at present respecting 
the Danish and Norwegian conquests; which, though of 
such special importance to England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
have hitherto been constantly viewed in an utterly false 
and partial light. Whilst writing the work in Denmark, 
I have but too frequently felt the want of constant access 
to the well-stored libraries of England; although those 
literary gentlemen in Great Britain to whom I have written 
for information, have received my applications with their 
usual readiness and friendship*. 

However, as my work contains the first fully detailed 
examination of the subject from the Danish side, I hope 
that, notwithstanding all its deficiencies and faults, it may 
prove of some interest in England, and serve to excite 
further investigation, which would doubtless throw a 
clearer light upon a very remote, but not on that account 
less remarkable, period in the history of England and the 
North, 

J. J. A. WORSAAE. 

Copenhagen, April, 1851. 



* Amongst the many gentlemen to whom I owe my thanks, I must 
particularly name: Sir H. Dryden, Bart., of Canons Ashby; C. Roach 
Smith, Esq., F.S.A., London; E. Hawkins, Esq., British Museum; J. M. 
Kemble, Esq. ; Professor Cosmo Innes, Edinburgh; Dr. Traill, ibid.; 
C. Neaves, Esq., ibid. ; R. Chalmers, Esq., of Auldbar Castle; Rev. J. 
H. Todd, D.D., Trinity College, Dublin; Professor C. Graves; and 
Dr. Gr. Petrie, likewise of Dublin. 



CONTENTS, 



INTBODUCTION. 

SECTION I. 

Page 
Scandinavia's greatest Memorials. — Those of Denmark and Norway 

at Sea. — Of Sweden on Land. — The Influence of Climate . xiii 

SECTION II. 

The Great Memorials of Sweden in their Relation to those of Den- 
mark and Norway. — Danish-Norwegian Memorials in the 
British Isles xxi 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 

SECTION I. 

Nature of the Country. — Earlier Inhabitants : Britons, Romans, 

and Anglo-Saxons 1 

SECTION II. 
The Danish Expeditions. — The Danish Conquest .... 6 

SECTION III. 
The Thames. — London 11 

SECTION IV. 

Watlinga-Straet. — South England. — Legends about the Danes.- — 

The Graves of Canute the Great and Hardicanute . . 20 

SECTION V. 

The Wash. — The Five Burghs.— The Humber.— York. — Nor- 
thumberland. — Stamford Bridge .... .30 



X CONTENTS. 

SECTION VI. 

Page 
Danish-Norwegian Memorials in the North of England. — Coins. — 

The Raven.— The Danish Flag . . . . ■ . .38 

SECTION VII. 
Danish-Norwegian Names of Places 65 

SECTION VIII. 

Resemblance of the People to the Danes and Norwegians. — Proper 

Names. — Popular Language. — Songs and Legends . . 77 

SECTION IX. 

The Outrages of the Danes. — The Danes and Normans. — Influence 

of the Danes in England .91 

SECTION X. 
Commerce and Navigation 99 

SECTION XI. 
Art and Literature . . . . . . . . .115 

SECTION XII. 
Ecclesiastical and Secular Aristocracy 127 

SECTION XIII. 

The Danelag. — Holmgang, or Duel. — Jury. — The Feeling of Free- 
dom . 151 

SECTION XIV. 

General View. — Anglo-Saxon and Danish-Norman England. — Sym- 
pathies for Denmark. — The Dane in England . . . 179 



THE NOBWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. 

SECTION I. 

Nature of Scotland.— The Highlands and Lowlands. — Population. — 

Original Inhabitants 189 



CONTENTS. XI 

SECTION II. 

Page 
The Anglo-Saxon3. — The Danes and Norwegians. — Effects of their 

Expeditions 195 

SECTION III. 

The Lowlands. — Population. — Language. — Norwegian - Danish 

Names of Places 200 

SECTION IV. 

Traditions concerning "the Danes." — The Southern and Northern 

Lowlands. — Danish Memorials. — Burghead .... 205 

SECTION V. 

The Orkneys and Shetland Isles. — Natural Features. — Population. — 

Oppression. 218 

SECTION VI. 

Shetland.— The People. — Songs. — Sword Dance. — Language. — 
Names of Places. — Ting wall. — Burg of Mousa. — Tumuli. — 
Bauta Stones 226 

SECTION VII. 

The Orkneys. — " pingavollr." — Monuments of the Olden Time. — 

Kirkwall.— St. Magnus Church 237 

SECTION VIII. 

Pentland Firth. — The Highlands. — Caithness.— Sutherland. — Ding- 
wall. — Fear of the Danes 251 

SECTION IX. 

The Hebrides. — The Northern Isles. — Lewis and Harris (Nags). 

— Skye. — Ossian's Songs. — Iona ...... 266 

SECTION X. 

The Sudreyjar, or Southern Isles. — Cantire. — Islay. — Man, — Names 
of Places. — Runic Stones. —Kings. — Battle of Largs. — " Lords 
of the Isles."— Tynwald in Man 276 



Xll CONTENTS. 

THE NOEWEGIANS IN IRELAND. 

SECTION I. 

Page 
Nature and Population of Ireland. — The " Danish" Conquests. — 

Traditions about the " Danes." — Political Movements . . 2#7 

SECTION II. 

Irish and Scandinavian Records. — Finn Lochlannoch. — Dubh-Loch- 

lannoch. — The Names of the Provinces .... 306 

SECTION III. 

Norwegian Kings. — Limerick. — Cork. — Waterford. — Reginald's 

Tower. — Dublin. — Thengmotha. — Oxmantown . . . 315 

SECTION IV. 

Norwegian Names of Places. — Near Dublin. — Norwegian Burial 

Places. — Norwegian Weapons and Ornaments . . . 323 

SECTION V. 

Ancient Irish Christianity and Civilization. — Trade. — No Irish, but 

Norwegian Coins. — Sigtryg Silkeskjseg. — Norwegian Coiners . 332 

SECTION VI. 

The Battle of Clontarf. — Power of the Ostmen after the Battle. — 
Their Churches and Bishops. — Their Land and Sea Forces. — 
The English Conquest. — Remains of the Ostmen. — Their Im- 
portance for Ireland 341 

SECTION VII. 

Conclusion — Warlike and Peaceful Colonizations. — Resemblances 

and Differences. — Before and Now 353 



Appendix I. Document of Edward I. 358 

Appendix II. Coinage of the Norwegians in Dublin . . .358 



INTRODUCTION. 



Section I. 



Scandinavia's greatest Memorials. — Those of Denmark and Norway at 
Sea. — Of Sweden on Land. — The Influence of Climate. 

The greatest, and for general history the most important, 
memorials of the Scandinavian people are connected, as 
is well known, with the expeditions of the Normans, and 
with the Thirty Years' War. 

In the Norman expeditions the North, mighty in its 
heathenism, poured forth towards the east, the west, and 
the south, its numerous warriors and shrewd men, who 
subverted old kingdoms, and founded new and powerful 
ones in their place. It was by Danish and Norwegian 
fleets that Normandy and England were then conquered, 
and kingdoms won in Scotland, Ireland, and North 
Holland ; whilst Norwegians settled on the Faroe Islands 
(Dan., Faroerne), and discovered and colonized Iceland. 
Hence their descendants, having afterwards passed over to 
Greenland, discovered America, and were in the habit of 
navigating the Atlantic Ocean centuries before other 
European nations. 

In all these voyages proportionally few Swedes took 
part. Inscriptions on runic stones in Sweden sometimes 
speak, indeed, of men who had settled or met their death 
in the west over in England (Anklant or Inklant). But 
on the whole the views of the Swedes were at that time, 

a 3 



XIV INTKODUCTION. 

as well as at a later period, mostly directed towards the 
east. Swedish Vikings, or pirates, harried and esta- 
blished themselves upon the coasts of Finland and of the 
countries now belonging to Russia ; and a tribe of them, 
the Varseger, even made themselves there the reigning 
people. Partly in consequence of this, Sweden — and par- 
ticularly the Island of Gothland, or Gulland — became the 
centre of the active trade which in ancient times (that is, 
from the eigthth to the twelfth century,) was carried on, 
through Russia, between Scandinavia and the countries 
around the Black and Caspian Seas, as well as Arabia. 

The Swedes, however, do not appear very prominently 
either in ancient times or in the early part of the middle 
ages. They were prevented from playing any considerable 
part in the distant lands towards the West by the san- 
guinary intestine disputes which took place between them 
and the Goths; and it was not till the fifteenth century, and 
after these disputes were adjusted, that they could appear 
upon the theatre of the world as a nation. The Swedish 
Charleses and Gustavuses, by means of the sword, sub- 
sequently caused the Swedish name to be feared and 
honoured ; not, however, at sea, but on land, on the plains 
of Russia, Poland, and Germany. Gustavus Adolphus, in 
the Thirty Years' War, after the disaster of the Danish- 
Norwegian king Christian IV., powerfully contributed to 
uphold Lutheranism, and by that means to establish 
liberty of conscience for Germany and the rest of Europe. 

It was, then, principally at sea that the Danes and Nor- 
wegians formerly won a name in the history of the world, 
whilst the Swedes obtained theirs on land. Indeed, the 
peculiar nature and situation of the different Scandinavian 
countries must have necessarily caused the strength and 
courage which were the common attributes of the Scan- 
dinavian race, to be exerted from the first in different 
directions. Sweden, which towards the west is separated 
from Denmark only by the Sound and Cattegat, is in like 
manner towards the east separated from the vast plains 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

of northern Europe by a confined and narrow sea. When, 
therefore, the thirst of glory and conquest urged the 
Swedish warriors from their homes, it was only neces- 
sary for them to cross over to the opposite shores, or at 
most to sail along the coasts of the Baltic. In Sweden, 
forests, valleys, and rivers, are the most prominent natural 
features, whilst the sea is but a subordinate one. It is 
scarcely to be expected that such a country should produce 
good seamen. But in Denmark and Norway the case is 
altogether different. 

Denmark is surrounded on all sides by the sea, which 
has indented the land with numberless bays and firths, 
and cut it up into small portions. Nor is it washed only 
by a confined sea like the Baltic, but also by the more 
open German Ocean. From the earliest times, therefore, 
necessity obliged the Dane to put to sea in order to keep 
up his connections with his friends on the surrounding- 
coasts and islands. Subsequently — when commerce, and 
more especially when military honour, required it — he was 
compelled to learn how to navigate the open sea, to struggle 
with the foaming waves and rapid currents, and to defy the 
surf — which is still the constant terror of seamen — on the 
coasts of north and west Jutland. 

Thus the Dane early became a bold and daring Viking, 
and the Norwegian distinguished himself in the same 
manner. Norway turns her broad and rocky bosom 
towards the ocean. Her wild and broken coasts, split 
into deep fiords, or gulfs, bear witness to the never- 
ceasing and violent attacks of the Atlantic. Towards the 
east, Norway is separated from Sweden by rocks, forests, 
and large desert plains. The interior of the country is 
partly filled with mountains and immense forests, which 
anciently were still more extensive. The valleys alone, 
along the banks of rivers, are productive, and capable of 
cultivation. The greater part of the inhabitants settled 
therefore originally on the fiords, or in the neighbourhood 
of the sea, where the pasture land was neither so over- 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

grown with wood, nor so sequestered as in the interior, 
and where also the sea air rendered the climate con- 
siderably milder. The weather, however, was variable 
enough, and the products of the earth being, partly on that 
account, but scanty, fishing and the chase became impor- 
tant sources of maintenance for the continually-increasing 
population. The forests supplied them with abundance of 
timber, the soil was rich in iron; nor were the people 
wanting in a daring and enterprising spirit. Ships were 
soon built, capable not only of navigating the fiords, but 
of venturing beyond their mouths. The first voyages were 
coasting ones, but subsequently they were extended from 
the southern part of Norway to the Danish and Swedish 
shores. 

The Norwegian, who had now become skilled in navi- 
gating his ship through the mountain waves of the 
Atlantic and the far more dangerous surfs on the rocks of 
Norway, no longer dreaded the open sea. When the popu- 
lation had increased to such an extent that the Norwegian 
rocks could barely afford it a sufficient maintenance ; when 
the reports concerning the rich lands beyond the sea, and 
their defenceless condition, promised at once renown and 
booty; and when, lastly, Harald Haarfager's conquests 
threatened the Norwegians with the loss of their freedom 
— then thousands of vessels shot out from the fiords of 
Norway, and steered dauntlessly for the neighbouring 
western islands. A northern life, and the severe winter's 
cold, had not only braced the body of the Viking to endure 
all kinds of hardships, and given him strength to wield 
the sword with effect ; it had also steeled his courage, and 
taught him fearlessly to face all manner of danger. The 
clear starry firmament of the North enabled him to observe 
the course and relative situation of the stars, which were 
then the only compass by which he steered his ship towards 
foreign and unknown shores. 

Norway must naturally be better calculated to form hardy 
persevering sailors than Denmark. With the exception of 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

the west coast of Jutland, where there is not a good har- 
bour to be found, and where, consequently, navigation must, 
in ancient times, have been very limited, Denmark is 
washed by an enclosed sea with flat coasts. The ocean, 
on the contrary, washes almost the whole of Norway's 
rocky shores; where the numerous and deeply-indented 
fiords resemble so many harbours. There are sufficient in- 
dications that anciently the Danes were accustomed to visit 
only the comparatively neighbouring countries of England, 
Holland, and France ; whilst the Norwegians sailed also 
towards the north on the wide Atlantic, whose storms and 
dangers did not prevent them from constantly visiting the 
Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and even America. 
The discovery and first colonization of these countries are, 
with just reason, the pride of the Norwegians and of their 
descendants the Icelanders. 

A comparison with other European nations will more 
clearly show how great an influence the climate of the 
North, and especially the Northern Sea, must have had on 
the development of navigation among the Danes and Nor- 
wegians, and on their whole maritime life. With the 
exception of England, which, in a still higher degree than 
Scandinavia, swims in the open sea, and of Holland, which 
lies as it were half under water, no country in Europe has 
produced a seafaring people which can be at all compared 
to the Northmen ; and this notwithstanding that Germany, 
France, and the Spanish Peninsula, have all a very con- 
siderable extent of coast. The reason undoubtedly is, that 
the coasts of those countries are washed by enclosed seas, 
which naturally cannot be compared with the ocean; whilst 
the countries themselves, especially Germany and France — ■ 
and the latter even in spite of its extent of coast towards 
the Atlantic — have an unmistakeable continental character. 
It is clear, moreover, that the ocean, as well as the smaller 
and enclosed seas, have, according to the difference of lati- 
tude, an entirely different influence on the people who 



XV111 INTRODUCTION. 

inhabit their shores. The Mediterranean, surrounded by 
rich and fruitful, but enervating, countries, has not shown 
itself capable of producing such seamen as the Baltic, 
where the climate is more severe, and the gifts of Nature 
incomparably more sparing. Spain and Portugal, it is 
true, have a great extent of coast towards the Atlantic, 
which may almost be compared with the west coast of 
Norway. But both those countries possess a fruitful soil 
and a glorious southern climate. Their inhabitants were 
not, like the Northmen of old, forced to visit foreign shores 
in order to procure subsistence, and to struggle continually 
with a raw and severe climate. They preferred to stay at 
home and enjoy the blessings of their own country ; and 
thus the calm energy and the proud self-reliance which are 
engendered by a ceaseless struggle with an ungrateful soil 
and climate, and which are indispensable to a hardy sea- 
man, were not developed in them as in the Norwegians 
and other inhabitants of the North. This may have been 
one of the causes why the Spaniards and Portuguese were 
unable to retain, in later times, their mastery over the new 
world. They were displaced by the English, a northern 
seafaring people, who were more at home on the sea. 

It was the same quiet energy which, even amid the 
excitement of passion, so strongly distinguished the 
northern from the southern races. The inhabitant of the 
South was more governed, as he now is, by his passions. 
A torrent of words, an animated play of the features, or 
even perhaps a violent assault, betrayed the fire that raged 
within him. The northern man, on the contrary, was of 
few words. His anger was under the dominion of his 
cooler reason, and he was capable of concealing the emo- 
tions of his soul. But he had a good memory. Years 
would pass before he revenged himself; and he felt a sort 
of pleasure in making his preparations, and waiting for the 
proper opportunity. The revenge of blood, therefore, took 
place in the cold North, as well as in the fiery South ; but 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

in the totally different manner in which it manifested 
itself we can hardly fail to recognise the influence of 
Nature. 

It must, however, be borne in mind that in every 
nation, except those situated at the Poles or under the 
Line, where Nature exerts an almost irresistible and over- 
whelming force, this influence manifests itself very diffe- 
rently, according to their different degrees of develop- 
ment. In the infancy of a people, and so long as their 
immediate wants render them entirely dependent on 
Nature, whose unexplained phenomena appear to them as 
those of some foreign and unknown power, her influence 
on their life is naturally strongest. The effect is the same 
as that which education and the companions with whom 
he associates produce on an individual. But as nations 
gradually become more enlightened and refined, they ob- 
tain a mastery over Nature, whose influence thus grows 
weaker and weaker, and at last almost vanishes. It is, 
indeed, one of the most marked steps in the progress of 
human development, when man becomes Nature's master, 
and makes her obedient to his power. Thus when English- 
men, Frenchmen, and others who belong to a people of 
defined character and perfectly-developed nationality, settle 
in foreign parts, the influence of Nature, even at the Poles, 
or under the Line, is scarcely stroug enough to produce any 
great change in their character. And upon the whole, to 
whatever degree civilization may be carried, most nations 
will never entirely lose that character which Nature has 
impressed upon them in the lands which gave them birth. 

The influence of Nature upon the Scandinavian people 
may be traced throughout their history, even down to the 
present times. In their sanguinary internal wars, the 
Danes and Norwegians generally gained the victory over 
the Swedes at sea. Under able leaders they have some- 
times been victorious on land also ; but here the Swedes 
have in general been superior. Christian IV. made no 
progress in the Thirty Years' War. On that occasion he 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

proved himself inferior to Gustavus Adolphus, who, when 
fighting on land, was in his true element. At sea, on the 
other hand, Christian IV. signally defeated the Swedish 
fleet. The chief heroes of the Swedish nation, and those 
who live most in the memory of the people, are, Gustavus 
Adolphus, Charles X., and particularly Charles XII. ; 
although that monarch, by his rash wars in Eussia, Poland, 
and Germany, inflicted deep wounds upon Sweden, which 
took a long time to heal. But the favourite heroes of the 
Danes and Norwegians are seamen; as Christian IV., 
Niels Juel, Hvitfeld, and especially Tordenskjold, who, 
singularly enough, was contemporary with Charles XII. 
The difference between the people is clearly expressed in 
the openiDg lines of two of the most favourite national 
songs. The Danish — formerly the Norwegian also— runs 
thus : 

" Kong Christian stod ved hoien Mast 
I Rog og Damp," 

(" King Christian stood by the high mast, enveloped in 
mist and smoke "), where there is an allusion to a fight at 
sea. But the Swedish lines, 

" Kung Karl den unge hjelte 
Han stod i rok och dam," 

(" King Charles the young hero, stood in smoke and 
dust 1 '), allude to battle and victory on land. Even to the 
present day it may with good reason be asserted that the 
Danes and Norwegians feel more inclination than the 
Swedes for a seafaring life. But as the battle in Copen- 
hagen Roads (April 2, 1801) maintained the ancient 
reputation of the Danes at sea, so also recent events have 
show 7 n, that both the Danes and Norwegians of the present 
day can fight on land with distinguished bravery. 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 



Section II. 



The Great Memorials of Sweden in their Relation to those of Denmark 
and Norway. — Danish-Norwegian Memorials in the British Isles. 

Russia, Poland, and particularly Germany, were, as we 
have seen, the theatre of the greatest victories of Sweden. 
The glory of Denmark and Norway, on the contrary, was 
founded in the West, over the sea, in America, Iceland, the 
British Isles, and France. Denmark's conquests of the 
southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, under the Waldemars, terminate, 
however, the times of the Vikings. The victories of 
Sweden are of a modern date, and since the last two cen- 
turies; but those of Denmark are of the ninth, tenth, 
eleventh, and twelfth centuries. The remembrance of the 
Swedish sabre-cut yet remains fresh among the Russians, 
Poles, and Germans ; nay, in some places, the Swedish 
name is still a terror to the common people. 

It is often made a subject of complaint against the great 
achievements of Denmark and Norway that they are of 
such remote antiquity ; and that, instead of promoting the 
freedom and spiritual advancement of mankind, like 
Sweden's struggles in the Thirty Years' War, they rather 
caused an immense retrograde step in civilization, since 
the heathen Vikings acted with unbridled ferocity, burnt 
and destroyed churches and convents, and rudely trampled 
upon everything that bore the mark of a higher intellectual 
development. Thus foreigners, and particularly the Ger- 
man historians, usually assert, for instance, that the Danish 
and Norwegian Vikings brought nothing but misfortune 
upon the British Isles ; whilst, on the contrary, everything 
great and good in England is mainly attributable to the 
Saxons, or Germans. This, however, is not to be won- 
dered at, since these critics were obliged to judge of situa- 
tions for whose right estimation they were entirely without 



XX11 INTRODUCTION. 

the necessary knowledge, namely, that of the more ancient 
history of the North. 

It would certainly not be gratifying to the national 
feelings of the Danes and Norwegians if the progress and 
settlements of the Vikings in foreign lands were marked 
only by acts of violence, murder, and incendiarism. Nor 
would it be a whit more pleasing or refreshing if it were 
necessary to dig up as it were out of the earth the memo- 
rials of those deeds, after they had lain for centuries in 
oblivion, or if we were obliged carefully to revive them 
and procure their acknowledgment in the countries which 
were once compelled to bow before the power of the northern 
warriors. 

But what if the Danish name, and the remembrance of 
the exploits of the Danes and Norwegians, in spite of the 
many centuries that have passed since they were performed, 
still live as fresh in the memory of the people of the 
western lands as the Swedish name in Germany, nay, per- 
haps even fresher? What if we found that, by means of 
monuments, the popular character, public institutions, and 
other traits, a constant powerful and beneficial influence 
could be traced from the expeditions of the Vikings or 
Northmen, so that the natives of the lands which they 
subdued accounted it an honour to descend from the bold 
natives of the North ? Would not the Northman in that 
case have a double right to be proud of his forefathers ? 
Or would he, upon the whole, any longer have reason to 
complain ? 

It is the object of the following pages to convey, partly 
in the form of travelling impressions, a picture of the 
memorials of the Danes and Norwegians, as they exist in 
the monuments and among the people of those countries 
which in former times most frequently witnessed the victo- 
ries of the Danes and Normans — namely, the British 
Islands. It is, however, by no means the exclusive, or 
even special, design of them, to present to scholars and 
persons of science detailed and critical observations on 



INTRODUCTION. XX111 

every individual ancient monument in those islands, 
which may be said to be of Danish or Norwegian origin. 
Their aim rather is to describe the more general, and 
consequently more appreciable, features of actually exist- 
ing Scandinavian monuments ; in doing which a distinction 
will, as far as possible, be drawn between the Danish and 
the Norwegian memorials; and in general between the 
influence of the Danes in England, and of the Norwegians 
in Scotland and Ireland. 



THE 



DANES IN ENGLAND. 



Section I. 



Nature of the Country. 



■Earlier Inhabitants : Britons, Romans, and 
Anglo-Saxons. 



The greater part of England consists of flat and fertile 
lowland, particularly towards the southern and eastern 
coasts, where large open plains extend themselves. Smiling 
landscapes, with well-cultivated fields, beautiful ranges 
of forest, and small clear lakes everywhere meet the eye. 
One would often be led to fancy oneself in some Danish 
province, if the splendid country seats, with their extensive 
parks, the numerous towns, the smoking factories, and the 
locomotive engines, with their trains darting continually to 
and fro, did not remind one of being in that land, which, 
with regard to riches and commerce, stands first in Europe. 
The plains are watered by noble and smooth-flowing rivers, 
which receive in their protecting embraces the thousands 
of ships which from all quarters seek the coasts of England. 
The winter is considerably milder than in our northern 
regions ; and the sea air, not permitting the snow to lie for 
any length of time, renders the climate, on the whole, 
warmer. In summer the fields are clothed with the most 
luxuriant verdure. The leafy woods, with their numerous 
oaks, are filled with singing birds. The charm that is 

B 



2 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. I. 

extended over English scenery, united with that freshness 
of life that stirs itself on all sides, cannot fail to make a 
deep impression on every foreigner. One feels in its full 
extent that the nature of the country presents all the 
requisites for greatness to a powerful and undegenerate 
people ; and one no longer requires an explanation why it 
was not till after a desperate struggle that the ancient 
Britons relinquished it, or why, in after times, various 
nations strove with their utmost efforts for the possession 
of such a land. 

The farther one travels towards the north or west of 
Ed gland, the mountains become higher, the valleys nar- 
rower, and the streams more rapid. In the north, how- 
ever, the mountains rather resemble high hills. They do 
not tower in broken masses like the granite cliffs of 
Scandinavia. Their forms are softer and more undulating, 
and they are, too, clothed with a rich vegetation, and 
frequently overgrown with wood. In Cumberland and 
Westmorland are inwreathed those charming lakes whose 
beauties constantly attract a number of tourists. Even 
the ridge of the Cheviot Hills is not much more than about 
two thousand feet above the level of the sea : but stretch- 
ing from east-north-east to west-south-west, with the river 
Tweed on one side, and the Solway firth on the other, they 
form a natural boundary between England and Scotland. 

Farthest towards the west rise the mountains of Wales, 
England's real highland. The valleys here are short and 
narrow, yet the country has not the wildness of mountain 
tracts. Although it contains England's highest mountain, 
Snowdon, whose summit is nearly three thousand five 
hundred feet above the sea, still it unites the charms of 
plain and mountain. The whole of Wales may be regarded 
as a knot of mountains opposed by nature to the enormous 
waves of the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea. The middle 
is the highest part, whence rivers flow towards the east 
and west ; the latter of which, after a short and foaming 
course, discharge themselves into the sea. The extent of 



Sect. I.] EARLTEE INHABITANTS. 3 

the country, both in length and breadth, is, on the whole, 
inconsiderable. 

This little mountain tract, which, in comparison with 
England, is poor as regards fertility, but all the richer in 
natural beauties, contains the last remains of the former 
masters of England, the Celtic Britons. By its remote 
situation, its rocks and narrow mountain passes, the cha- 
racteristics of its former inhabitants have been preserved 
to our times. The people speak the ancient Welsh lan- 
guage, a branch of the Celtic stock ; and have also inhe- 
rited no small share of that burning hatred which their 
forefathers nourished against the English, who gained 
possession of their original fatherland by force. 

Wales was united to England as early as the close of 
the thirteenth century; yet for ages later the Britons knew 
how to keep their country almost closed against the intru- 
sion of strangers; whilst the harpers, by their ancient 
songs, kept alive the remembrance of past exploits and 
past disasters, and thus, as it were, still more hedged in 
and protected the language and nationality of the people. 
It was not till later times, when high roads, and at present 
railroads, began to open a more frequent intercourse be- 
tween Wales and England, that the tones of the harp 
became almost entirely mute. The Welsh language gave 
way more and more to the English, and the time can 
hardly be far distant when the Celtic will become entirely 
extinct in Wales, as it has long been in Cornwall. 

The people, whose scanty remnant thus spend the last 
days of their old age among the Welsh mountains, formerly 
belonged, both by possessions and kinship, to the most 
powerful in Europe. Not only were the Scotch and the 
Irish of the same origin with them, but on the other side of 
the channel, throughout Gaul, or France, Spain, and the 
middle and south of Europe, dwelt tribes of the Celtic 
race. Until about the time of the birth of Christ there 
was no people north of the Alps, which* with regard to 
power, agriculture, commerce, skill in the arts, and civiliza- 

b 2 



4 THE DANES IX EXGLAND. TSect. I. 

tiou in general, could equal, much less surpass, the Celts. 
Yet they were not strong enough to clip the wings of the 
Roman eagle, when it began to extend them over the Alps. 
The superior military skill and higher civilization of the 
Romans, triumphed over the various Celtic tribes, which 
were torn by internal dissensions, and could not once, even 
under the danger which menaced them, faithfully unite 
together. VShortly after the birth of Christ, therefore, the 
Roman hosts had already gained a footing in Britain, and, 
notwithstanding the violent and repeated attacks of the 
natives, soon made themselves masters of the country. 
They even fought their way to Scotland : where, however, 
the wild highlands, and their brave inhabitants, the Cale- 
donians, arrested their victorious march. The Romans 
were now obliged to erect walls, ramparts, and towers, in 
order to prevent the highland Scots from uniting with the 
Britons, and to avert the speedy loss of the land which 
they had already won. Throughout Britain they laid the 
foundations of a civilization till then unknown there. 
They promoted agriculture, commerce, and trade ; they 
made roads, and built towns and castles; and, as the3 T had 
not immigrated in any great multitudes, they left the 
inhabitants in tolerably quiet possession of the soil of their 
forefathers. 

But the Roman power fell in turn. It was natural that 
their dominion in so distant aud sequestered a land as 
Britain should decay sooner and more easily than else- 
where, especially as the British chiefs did not fail imme- 
diately to revive the old disputes. Their rude neighbours 
in Scotland, the Picts and Scots, no longer restrained by 
fear of the Romans, made serious and devastating inroads 
upon the northern provinces of England, where no slight 
degree of riches and splendour already prevailed. The 
Britons, moreover, under the dominion of the Romans, had, 
like their kinsmen across the channel, already begun to 
grow cowardly and effeminate. Long oppression had given 
the power of the Celts a death-blow : and thev were conse- 



Sect. I.J ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES. 5 

quently unable to withstand the powerful and undegenerate 
tribes of Germany, which now, in the great tide of emigra- 
tion from the east and north of Europe, rushed into the 
old Celtic countries, and made themselves new abodes, 
either, for the most part, putting the ancient inhabitants 
to death, or reducing them to a state of thraldom. 
/lh the fifth century Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, from 
North Germany and the peninsula of Jutland, invaded 
Britain. The unfortunate Britons, when they would not 
submit to their conquerors, were persecuted with fire and 
sword, and were at last driven to the remote mountain 
districts in the West of England, particularly Cumberland 
(the land of the Cymbri or Celts), Wales, and Cornwall. 
After a sanguinary war, which lasted more than a hundred 
and fifty years, all their fine fruitful plains fell into the 
hands of their foreign conquerors, who continually brought 
more and more of their countrymen over, to build up again 
and inhabit the burnt or destroyed towns and houses, and 
to cultivate the neglected fields. The Angles settled 
principally in the north of England, the Saxons in the 
south and south-west, and mingled amongst both dwelt 
the Jutes, who do not appear to have been numerous 
enough to occupy large districts of their own. Under the 
common name of " Anglo-Saxons," the descendants of these 
nations continued for several centuries to be the reigning 
people, although the Britons did not cease to make harass- 
ing invasions on the frontiers of their hereditary enemies. 
For the rest, the Saxons successfully continued what the 
Romans had begun, with regard to the improvement of the 
land, and the promotion of civilization among the people. 
They were, it is true, divided into several tribes and 
smaller kingdoms, which not unfrequently warred against 
each other. But Christianity soon began to extend itself, 
and about the time of its introduction the separate king- 
doms were united into one. Churches and convents rose 
with surprising rapidity throughout the country, and the 
pursuits of peace, science, and art, throve luxuriantly. 



6 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. II. 

Every plant, though foreign, flourished vigorously in the 
English soil. 

In the first ages, however, Christianity produced 
among the people, as was the case in other countries 
besides England, a sort of degeneracy and weakness. 
Instead of the din of battle of the heathens there were 
now heard songs and prayers, which, joined with the 
constantly-increasing refinement, made the people dull and 
effeminate, so that they willingly bent under the yoke of 
their masters, both spiritual and temporal. In the ninth, 
tenth, and eleventh centuries the Anglo-Saxons had greatly 
degenerated from their forefathers. Relatives sold one 
another into thraldom ; lewdness and ungodliness were 
become habitual ; and cowardice had increased to such a 
degree, that, according to the old chroniclers, one Dane 
would often put ten Anglo-Saxons to flight. Before such 
a people could be conducted to true freedom and greatness 
it was necessary that an entirely new vigour should be 
infused into the decayed stock. 

This vigour was derived from the Scandinavian north, 
where neither Romans nor any other conquerors had 
domineered over the people, and where heathenism with 
all its roughness, and all its love of freedom and bravery, 
still held absolute sway. 



Section II. 
The Danish Expeditions. — The Danish Conquest. 

A fate similar to that which the Anglo-Saxons had for- 
merly brought upon the Britons, now partly became the 
lot of the Anglo-Saxons themselves. The same sea, the 
North Sea, or, as the old inhabitants of Scandinavia called 
it, " England's Sea," which in the fifth century had borne 
the Anglo-Saxons to England, and which had afterwards 
served to maintain the peaceful connections of trade, 



Sect. II.] DANISH EXPEDITIONS. 7 

and the intercourse between kinsmen in England and in 
their northern fatherland, now suddenly teemed with the 
numberless barks of the Vikings, which, from the close of 
the eighth century, constantly showed themselves in all the 
harbours and rivers of England. For about three centuries 
the Danes were the terror of the Anglo-Saxons. They 
generally anchored their ships at the mouths of rivers, or 
lay under the islands on the coasts. Thence they would 
sail up the rivers to the interior of the country, where they 
frequently mounted on horseback, and conveyed themselves 
with incredible speed from one place to another. Their 
frightful sabre-cuts resounded everywhere. Their progress 
was marked by the burning of churches and convents, 
castles, and towns ; and great multitudes of people were 
either killed or dragged away into slavery. In a short 
time they began to take up their abode in the country for 
the winter, and in the spring they renewed their destruc- 
tive incursions. The terrified inhabitants imagined they 
beheld a judgment of God in the devastations of the 
Vikings, which had been foretold in ancient prophecies. 

Not even the remote and poorer districts of Wales were 
spared. It is true that it was extremely difficult for the 
Danes to force an entrance on the land side, and, in order 
to do so by sea, it was necessary to make a troublesome 
and dangerous voyage round the long-extended peninsula 
formed by the modern Cornwall and Devonshire. In 
general its rivers were not large or navigable, and the 
number of good harbours was but small. Nevertheless, 
the Northmen seem to have known Wales well, as the old 
land of the Britons ; since it was always called " Bret- 
land," to distinguish it from England. Palnatoke, the 
celebrated chief of the Jomsvikings, is said to have married 
there, during one of his warlike expeditions, Olof, a 
daughter of the Bretland jarl, Sterner, whose Jarledomme 
(earldom) Palnatoke afterwards possessed. The Sagas 
often make mention of Bj'drn hin Bretske (Bear the Bri- 
ton) as being among his men ; and it is said that when he 



8 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. II. 

assisted at the funeral solemnities which his foster son, 
King Svend Tveskjaeg*, held in honour of his father, King 
Harald Blaatand f, the half of his suite were Britons. 
Svend himself had ravaged Bretland ; and it was there, as 
is well known, that the Icelander, Thorvald Kodranson, 
surnamed Vidforle (the far-travelled), delivered him by 
his noble disinterestedness from a perilous imprisonment. 

The expeditions of the Danes to Bretland seem, how- 
ever, to have been confined to the tracts bordering on the 
north bank of the Severn, and to the Isle of Anglesey; 
which latter was not unfrequently visited by the Nor- 
wegians in their piratical voyages to the Hebrides and 
Ireland. At least the Sagas mention it as " the southern- 
most region, of which former Norwegian kings had made 
themselves masters ; " and it was probably here that 
Palnatoke had his kingdom. The very name of the island 
recalls a close connection with the inhabitants of the north. 
Anciently it was called " Maenige ; " but the Danes and 
Norwegians, with regard, clearly, to its situation by the 
land of the Angles (England), gave it the name of 
" Ongulsey," or Angelsoen, whence the present form 
Anglesey may, doubtless, be said to have heen derived. 

The connections of the Danish Vikings with Bretland 
were r however, far from being always unfriendly. For as 
the Britons in Wales and Cornwall constantly nourished a 
lively hatred against the Anglo-Saxons, on whose lands 
they continued to make war, the Danes often entered into 
an alliance with them against their common enemies. 
The Danish and British armies were either combined, or 
else the Britons attacked from the west and south, whilst 
the Danes invaded the eastern coasts. These deep and 
well-laid plans show that the views of the Danes were no 
longer confined to robbery and plunder, with a view to gain 
booty, or to overthrow the churches and convents which 
threatened their ancient gods with destruction, but that 
they now seriously thought of conquering for themselves 

* Split-beard. f Blue-tooth. 



Sect. II.J THE DANISH CONQUEST. 9 

new tracts of country ; nay, if possible, of subjugating or 
expelling the Anglo-Saxons throughout England. 

Already in the ninth century the Anglo-Saxons had 
receded considerably before the Danes, who had obtained 
possessions on the east coast, where they quickly spread 
themselves, and where fresh arriving Vikings always found 
reception and assistance. The Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred 
the Great, was driven from his throne, and wandered about 
a long time in the forests, whilst the Danes held the 
sovereignty in his dominions. He succeeded, indeed, at 
length in regaining the crown ; but in the mean time the 
possessions of the Danes on the east coast had been ex- 
tended, and their power continually increased by the 
arrival of fresh emigrants, who settled in different parts of 
the country, and married the native women. Alfred, it is 
true, built fleets for the protection of the coasts ; but the 
militia-men instituted in his time, in order to repel the 
frequent attacks of the Danes, now went over to them, 
accounting them their kinsmen. In Northumberland 
especially, the Danes, and a considerable number of Nor- 
wegians, had settled themselves securely under their own 
chiefs. Here they had sought a refuge against the new 
order of things which was now about to make itself felt in 
the mother countries, Denmark and Norway, 

Partly as a result of the expeditions of the Vikings, and 
the frequent contact into which they were thus brought 
with Christian States, Christianity began, towards a.d. 900, 
to spread itself in the countries of Scandinavia. About 
the same time occurred there, as in the rest of Europe, a 
union of many small kingdoms under a single sovereign ; 
and the Scandinavian tribes were subjected to the kings of 
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Some powerful and mal- 
content ones had indeed migrated beyond the sea ; but, 
nevertheless, there were materials enough left for dissen- 
sion in the new kingdoms, before Christianity could be 
generally introduced, and the power of the kings firmly 
established. A time arrived when the internal struggles 

b 3 



10 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. II. 

in Denmark and Norway scarcely allowed the inhabitants 
to send any availing support to their friends in Northum- 
berland, or to the other Danes on the coasts of England. 
Towards the middle of the tenth century, therefore, the 
hitherto almost independent Danish provinces in England 
were compelled to submit to the Anglo-Saxon kings, whose 
sovereignty, however, was but of short duration ; for 
after the year 980 Danish and Norwegian Vikings again 
swarmed throughout England. Nor was it now, as for- 
merly, merely the petty kings, who, with a comparatively 
inferior force, conducted these warlike expeditions. By 
degrees the Danish and Norwegian kings' sons, and even 
the kings themselves, endeavoured, with large fleets and 
well-appointed armies, to wrest the sceptre from the hands 
of the feeble Anglo-Saxon monarchs. It was in vain that 
the latter strove against them. They laid a tax on the 
whole land, called Danegelt, in order to defray the great 
expenses which the defence of the country against the 
Danes occasioned. But the money thus raised it was 
often necessary to expend in buying off the Danes, or in 
supporting their victorious hosts whilst they wintered in 
the country. The Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred, after 
seeing his kingdom harried and fearfully devastated by the 
Danish king, Svend Tveskjasg, in conjunction with Olaf 
Trygveson, the son of the king of Norway, first succeeded 
in making peace with Olaf in 995, and with Svend in 
J 002, after paying immense sums as Danegelt, and agree- 
ing to many humiliating conditions. 

As a last resource against the daily-increasing number 
and power of the Danes, Ethelred determined secretly and 
cruelly to murder those who were settled in England. 
The massacre took place on St. Bridget's eve, the 13th of 
November, 1002. Old and young, women and children, 
were murdered with the most frightful tortures. Not even 
the churches could protect the Christian Danes against the 
fury of the Anglo-Saxons. The slaughter was, however, 
confined almost exclusively to the south of England ; since 



Sect. III.] THE DANISH CONQUEST. 1 1 

towards the north, and particularly in Northumberland, 
the population was chiefly of Danish and Norwegian 
extraction. 

No sooner did the news of Ethelred's perfidious and 
sanguinary act reach Denmark, than a strong fleet 
was fitted out, and in the following year (1003) the 
Danish flag waved on the coasts of England. After 
numerous sanguinary battles, the Anglo-Saxons were com- 
pelled to submit to Svend Tveskjseg and Canute. What 
could not be conquered by force of arms was obtained 
through prudence and cunning. The Danish conquest of 
England was completed, and for about one generation 
Danish kings wore the English crown. 



Section III. 

The Thames. — London. 



London, and its wealthy neighbourhood, was naturally the 
main object of the Danish attacks in the south-east part of 
England. Under the Komans it had already become con- 
siderable as a commercial mart ; but afterwards, under the 
Anglo-Saxons, it increased so much in wealth and import- 
ance, that it was, if we- may use the expression, the heart 
of England. It was for this reason that the old northern 
bards used the term " Londons Drot " in their songs 
about the kings of England. From the first London is 
undoubtedly indebted for its greatness chiefly to its situa- 
tion on the Thames, which opened an easy communication 
both with the opposite shores of the Continent and with 
the interior of England. In our days it is certainly a 
remarkable sight to observe the numberless ships that 
assemble there from all parts of the world, and to mark the 
activity that everywhere prevails on the beautiful shores of 
the river. But it becomes doubly remarkable when we 



12 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. III. 

recollect that this spectacle is neither a new one, nor has 
arisen under a single people ; but that it has been re- 
peated, in a somewhat altered form, for about two thousand 
years, under the most different circumstances : namely, 
under the dominion of the Britons, the Romans, the Anglo- 
Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans. In this respect 
there is no river whatsoever that can be compared with the 
Thames. Had it not been one of the most, or indeed 
quite the most, favourably situated stream in Europe for 
commerce, the greatest commercial city in the world would 
hardly have risen on its banks. 

But just as the Thames brought, in the olden times, 
numerous merchant vessels, and, along with them, wealth 
and prosperity to the south of England, so must it also 
have frequently drawn down ruin on the surrounding dis- 
tricts, since it attracted thither almost all the Vikings who 
sought for booty and conquest. Nature herself has cut a 
deep bay into the eastern coast of England, at the mouth 
of the Thames, and thus pointed out to the Vikings the 
way they should pursue. The ships of the Danish Vi- 
kings constantly swarmed at the mouth of the Thames. 
When they were not strong enough to sail up the river and 
attack London, or when the winter approached, they 
anchored under the coast, in places where they could lie in 
wait for and seize the merchantmen, and whence they 
could easily reach the open sea, if attacked by too superior 
a force. Some of their most important stations were 
under the Isle of Thanet, in Kent, and the Isle of Shep- 
;.pey, (Anglo-Saxon, Sceapige, or the Sheep Island,) 
which lies at the mouth of the Thames. Thus these 
islands, whose remote situation rendered them sufficiently 
dangerous before, suffered doubly from the ravages com- 
mitted by the Vikings on the coasts. Another place near 
the Thames, where the northern Vikings and conquerors 
generally landed when they harried the south of England, 
and where they often wintered, was the present Sandwich, 
in Kent. As it was an important landing-place even in 



Sect. III.J THE THAMES. 13 

the times of the Komans, they had already fortified it. 
Sandwich (Ang.-Sax., Wic en Stad) became in the 
mouths of the Northmen " Sandvic," or the sandy bay ; an 
appellation which perfectly agrees with the nature of the 
place. We find the same name for places in Orkney and 
the Shetland Isles, in Iceland, and Norway. From Sand- 
wich it was but a few miles to Canterbury (in the northern 
tongue "Kantaraborg"), which, being a rich bishopric, was 
on that account exposed to remorseless plunder. In the 
year 1011 especially, the Jarl Thorkel the Tall, visited it 
with fire and sword. Christchurch, the principal church 
in England, was burnt down ; the monks were put to 
death, and only one in ten of the citizens spared. Many, 
and among them Archbishop Elfeg, who was afterwards 
cruelly murdered, w T ere cast into prison. 

To the south of Canterbury, on the channel, lies 
" Dungeness ;" and at the mouth of the Thames, " Foul- 
ness," and " Sheerness." The termination ness, in these 
names, seems to be neither Saxon, nor Celtic, but plainly 
the Danish and Norwegian Ncbs (a promontory, or lofty 
tongue of land, running out into the sea). 

The nearer we approach London by the Thames, the 
more memorials we find of the Danes. Just before we 
reach the metropolis, we sail past Greenwich on . the 
left, called by the northmen " Grenvik " (nearer, perhaps, 
" Granvigen," the pine-bay), whose celebrated hospital 
contains in our days a little host of England's super- 
annuated seamen, who have fought in defence of her 
honour, and who, supported by the public, enjoy an old 
age free from care. In the eleventh century Grenvik was 
also for a long time the resting-place of a host of naval 
warriors, who were supported at the public expense ; but 
that was a host of bold Danish Vikings, who, after having 
fearfully devastated England under their chief, Jarl 
Thorkel the Tall, had now, in 1011, allowed themselves 
to be bought off for an immense sum of money, and to 
settle down peaceably in the service of the English 



14 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. III. 

king Ethelred. From this time it became the custom for 
the English monarchs to have continually a standing 
army, composed mostly of Danes, " Huskarlene," or 
" Thingmen," as they were called (j^ingmannali^), whose 
duty it was to keep the country quiet, and to defend it 
against foreign invasion ; whence they sometimes came to 
fight against their own countrymen. King Athelstan (925- 
941) had, however, almost a century earlier, made use of 
Danish warriors to suppress revolt in his kingdom; for 
which purpose it was ordered that one of these men should 
be maintained in every house, in order that they might be 
always ready for the king's service. The Thingmen were 
to the English kings much what the Varangians were to 
the Greek emperors in Constantinople. They had certain 
rights and privileges, and later, in particular, two places 
were assigned to them for their head quarters — London 
in the south of England ; and in the north, Slesvig 
(Nottinghamshire). Under King Canute, they played, 
as is well known, a considerable part. 

The name of Canute the Great is connected not only 
with the town of Brentford (Brandfurda), on the Thames, 
near the western parts of London, and with Ashingdon 
(Assatun), in Essex, to the north-east of London, and, 
as the legend says, to the north of " Daneskoven " (the 
Danish forest), in which places he fought bloody battles 
with Edmund Ironsides, before he subdued England ; 
but it is also connected in the closest manner with London 
itself. 

When I sailed up the Thames for the first time, and 
when at length, above a forest of masts, the gray turrets 
of the Tower appeared on one side, and London Bridge in 
the distance, I was involuntarily led to recall the time 
when King Canute long lay in vain with his ships before 
the fortress and bridge of the metropolis, whilst a great 
part of the rest of England submitted to his sw r ay. Lon- 
don Bridge was defended by three castles, one of which 
stood on the bridge itself. The Danes attempted to dig 



Sect. III.] LONDON. 15 

a canal round the foot of the bridge ; and though Canute, 
who was well supported by Thorkel the Tall, and by Erik 
Jarl, the Norwegian, is said to have resumed the siege 
several times, yet it was by negociation alone that he seems 
to have obtained possession of London. 

Even amid the varied impressions created by the me- 
tropolis of the world, I could not forget — and what Dane 
could ? — that it was chiefly here that for a long period the 
Northmen found, as it were, another home, from which 
they returned to their native land enriched by fresh know- 
ledge, and on the whole with a higher degree of civiliza- 
tion, which they afterwards turned to account in the 
north ; that it was here that not a few of the most zealous 
promoters and defenders of Christianity in Scandinavia, 
and amongst them particularly the Norwegian king, Olaf 
Trygveson, had dwelt before they began the work of con- 
version ; that it was here, lastly, that several Danish 
chieftains, and especially Canute the Great, had played 
the sovereign, and held their court, surrounded by the 
Thingmen and the bards, who in those times usually 
accompanied the northern kings. On surveying London, 
its proud river, and beautiful uplands, one cannot help 
doubly admiring the power of that king, who, at a distance 
from his native land, was not only able to command all 
this, as well as the whole of England, but Norway and 
Denmark in addition. One feels the truth of the words of 
the Saga about Canute : " Of all kings that have spoken 
the Danish tongue, he was the mightiest, and the one that 
reigned over the greatest kingdoms." 

Although London was at that time one of the most con- 
siderable towns in Europe, it was of course but very small 
compared with what it is at present. The walls inclosed 
only that proportionally small part of modern London 
called the " City," and which forms the centre of its busy 
commerce. Close by lay a castle (whence the Northmen's 
name for London, " Lundunaborg "), and undoubtedly on 
the same spot where, not long after Canute's time, William 



16 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. III. 

the Conqueror built the Tower. Somewhat higher up the 
Thames, on an island which, from the many thorns grow- 
ing there, obtained the name of Thorney {Anglo-Saxon, 
Thornege), or the Thorn Island, stood another castle, said 
to have been inhabited at different times by Canute. 
This island, in whose name we find both the Anglo-Saxon 
ege, and afterwards the northern ey (island), and which is 
therefore sometimes very incorrectly called Thorney Island, 
has now lost both its ancient name and appearance. Under 
the name of Westminster, it forms at present a continuous 
part of London. 

The Dane who wanders through this immense city, will 
not only be reminded by such names as " Denmark Court," 
" Denmark Street," and " Copenhagen Street," and by 
monuments in St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, of the 
sanguinary battles which have taken place in modern times 
between England and Denmark, as well as of the older 
ties of friendship, which for a long time found increased 
support by means of the relationship and reciprocal mar- 
riages which occurred in the reigning families of the two 
countries ; but he will also find traces even to this day, of 
the power and influence which his forefathers, both before 
and after King Canute's time, possessed in the most 
important commercial city of wealthy England. 

Approaching the city from the west end, through the 
great street called " the Strand," we see, close outside the 
old gate of Temple Bar, a church called St. Clement's 
Danes, from which the surrounding parish derives its 
name. In the early part of the middle ages this church 
was called in Latin, " Ecclesia Sancti Clementis Danorum," 
or, " the Danes' Church of St. Clement." It was here that 
the Danes in London formerly had their own burial place ; 
in which reposed the remains of Canute the Great's son 
and next successor, Harald Harefoot. When, in 1040, 
Hardicanute ascended the throne after his brother Harald, 
he caused Harald's corpse to be disinterred from its tomb 
in Westminster Abbey, and thrown into the Thames ; 



Sect. Ill] SOUTHWAKK. 1 7 

where it was found by a fisherman, and afterwards buried, 
it is said, " in the Danes' churchyard in London." From 
the churelryard it was subsequently removed into a round 
tower, which ornamented the church before it was rebuilt 
at the close of the seventeenth century. 

It has, indeed, been supposed by some that this church 
was called after the Danes only because so many Danes 
have been buried in it ; but as it is situated close by the 
Thames, and must have originally lain outside the city 
walls, in the western suburbs, and consequently outside of 
London proper, it is certainly put beyond all doubt, that 
the Danish merchants and mariners who, for the sake of 
trade, were at that time established in or near London, 
had here a place of their own, in which they dwelt to- 
gether as fellow-countrymen. Here it should also be 
remarked, that this church, like others in commercial 
towns, as,' for instance, at Aarhuus in Jutland, at Trond- 
hjem in Norway, and even in the city of London (in East 
Cheap), was consecrated to St. Clement, who was especially 
the seaman's patron saint. The Danes naturally preferred 
to bury their dead in this church, which was their proper 
parish church. 

The Danes and Norwegians also possessed an important 
place of trade on the southern shore of the Thames, op- 
posite the city — in Southwark, as it is called, which was 
first incorporated with London, as part of the city, in the 
middle ages. The very name of Southwark, which is unmis- 
takably of Danish or Norwegian origin, is evidence of this. 
The Sagas relate that, in the time of King Svend Tveskjseg, 
the Danes fortified this trading place; which, evidently on 
account of its situation to the south of the Thames and 
London, was called " Sydvirke" (Sudrvirki), or the 
southern fortification. From Sudrvirki, which in Anglo- 
Saxon was called Su^S-geweorc, but which in the middle 
ages obtained the name of Suthwerk or Suwerk, arose the 
present form, Southwark, through small and gradual 
changes in the pronunciation. The Northmen had a 



L8 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. III. 

church in Sydvirke dedicated to the Norwegian king, Olaf 
the Saint. Olaf, who fell in the battle of Stiklestad. in 
1030, was so celebrated a saint that churches were built 
in his honour, not only in Norway, where he became the 
patron saint of the kingdom, and in the rest of Scandi- 
navia, but also in almost every place where the Northmen 
established themselves ; nay, even in distant Constanti- 
nople the Varangians had a church called after him. 
There is still a street in Southwark, close by London 
Bridge and the Thames, which bears the significant name 
of Tooley Street, a corruption of St. Olave's Street. On 
the northern side stands a church, called St. Olave's 
Church, and which is found mentioned by that name 
as early as the close of the thirteenth century. 

Within the city, in what may be strictly called ancient 
London, where the Sagas already mention a St. Olafs 
Churcb, there are to be found at this day no fewer than 
three churches consecrated to St. Olave : namely, in Silver 
Street; at the north-west corner of Seething Lane, Tower 
Street ; and in the Old Jewry (St. Olave's Upwell). The 
two last named stand in the eastern extremities of the 
city, yet within its ancient boundaries. In the same 
neighbourhood, near London Bridge, there is also a church 
dedicated to St. Magnus the Martyr, which likewise un- 
doubtedly owes its origin to the Northmen, either the 
Norwegians or Danes. St. Magnus was a Norwegian jarl, 
who was killed in the twelfth century in Orkney, where 
the cathedral in Kirkwall is also consecrated to him. 

That so many churches in London should be named after 
these Norwegian saints, Olaf and Magnus, who, moreover, 
were not canonized till after the death of Canute the 
Great, and the overthrow of the Danish dominion in 
England, furnishes no mean evidence of the influence 
of the Northmen in London. It confirms in a remarkable 
manner the truth of the old statements, that the Danes 
who dwelt in London could at times even turn the scales 
at the election of a king ; as, for instance, after the death 



Seet.III.j THE " HU STING." 19 

of Canute the Great. An English chronicler, speaking 
of the power of the Danes at that period, adds, that the 
citizens of London had, by reason of their frequent inter- 
course with " the barbarians''' (the Danes), almost adopted 
their manners and customs. And it was, indeed, natural 
that the long voyages of the Northmen, and the important 
commerce carried on between the countries of Scandinavia 
and England, should have long secured to the northern 
merchants an influential position in a city like London, 
which was in the highest degree a commercial city, and 
particularly when these merchants had once been esta- 
blished there in great numbers. 

But the most striking and remarkable memorial of the 
early power of the Danes and other Northmen in London 
is this — that the highest tribunal in the city has retained 
to our days its pure old northern name " Husting." The 
word Thing, whereby, as is well known, both deliberative 
and judicial assemblies were designated in the north from 
the earliest times, does not seem to have been employed by 
the Anglo-Saxons in that signification, or at all events not 
before the Danish expeditions and Danish immigrations 
into England. The Anglo-Saxons used in that sense the 
term gemot, as in " Witena-gemot," which was the name 
of their parliament. Husthings are also especially men- 
tioned in the Sagas as having been held in the north, par- 
ticularly by kings, jarls, and other powerful individuals. 
The Husthing in London was originally established in 
order to protect and guard the laws and liberties of the 
city and the customs of the courts of judicature ; and 
the principal magistrates were judges. In the Latin of 
the middle ages it is said of a person who attended there 
— " Comparuit in Hustingo." A similar Husting was also 
formerly found in the Isle of Sheppey, at the mouth of the 
Thames. 

London, beneath whose walls and gates the Danes have 
fought numerous battles with various success, contains 
within it memorials both of their greatest power and 



20 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IV. 

of the decay of their dominion. On the same side of the 
Thames as Sydvirke, or Southwark, but somewhat higher 
up, lies Lambeth (formerly Lambythe, Lambethe), which 
is now a part of London, and the residence of the Primate 
of England, but which in olden times was a village outside 
the capital. At a country-house there a Danish jarl cele- 
brated his marriage in the year 1042. King Hardicanute, 
with a number of his followers, was present at the banquet ; 
but just as he was drinking to the bride, he suddenly fell 
to the ground, in a fit of apoplexy, and shortly afterwards 
breathed his last at the age of only twenty-six years. 
Hardicanute was the last Danish king in England. 



Section IV. 

Watlinga-Straet. — South England. — Legends about the Danes. — The 
graves of Canute the Great and Hardicanute. 

In the heart of the city of London, near St. Paul's 
Cathedral, is a street called "Watling- Street." Anciently 
it was connected with the great high road of the same 
name (or more properly Watlinga-Straet), which had been 
made by the Britons from the Channel and London 
through the midst of England to the north-east of Wales, 
Chester, and the Irish Channel. On account of the 
importance of this road, as communicating with the inte- 
rior of England as well as with Ireland, the Romans 
improved it. But, like most of the high roads of ancient 
times, it was carried over heights, with the constant view 
of avoiding streams which would require the erection of 
bridges. It followed, as nearly as possible, the natural 
division of the watercourse in England, or the ridge of 
the land watershed whence rivers take their course in all 
directions. 

About the year 1000 this road not only showed the 
natural boundary between the northern and southern river- 
valleys, but likewise indicated in the clearest possible 



Sect. IV.] SOUTH ENGLAND. 21 

manner a political boundary between the inhabitants of 
different extraction, and different manners and customs. 
The districts to the north and east of this road belonged 
for the most part to the so-called " Dena-lagu," or " Dane- 
lagh," that is, the Dane's community (from lag, whence 
in the north itself, in Norway, for instance, Thrbndelagen, 
and in Sweden, Roslagen). For here the Danes, and 
other conquerors or immigrants of Scandinavian origin, 
had gradually subdued and expelled the Anglo-Saxons, 
and here the Danish laws, habits, and customs, chiefly 
prevailed. 

In the districts to the south, on the contrary, the re- 
pulsed Anglo-Saxons had concentrated the last remnants of 
their former power. A great number of wealthy and leading 
Danes were indeed also settled here, either in the country, 
or, with a view to commerce, in the principal towns on the 
coast ; as in Winchester, which, like London, long had its 
" Husting ; " Exeter, where a church was in later times 
dedicated to St. Olave ; and Bristol. But, out of London, 
the Danes scarcely formed at that time any really strong 
and united power in the south of England. The pre- 
dominating people was the Anglo-Saxon, and in general 
the old Saxon characteristics had been preserved. 

To the south of Watlinga- Street, which had already 
often been agreed upon between the Danish conquerors 
and the Anglo-Saxon kings as the boundary between the 
Danish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Edmund Ironsides 
received his share of England by agreement with Canute. 
It was in these districts that the Anglo-Saxon kings had 
always found their truest and most numerous adherents, 
and they had therefore generally been the theatre of the 
more important battles between the Anglo-Saxons and the 
Danes. Near Wareham, in Dorsetshire, Alfred purchased 
peace with a host of the latter, who swore on their armlets 
to observe it ; but, though this oath was regarded by the 
Danes as very sacred, they are said to have broken it 
immediately During his exile Alfred concealed himself 



22 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IV. 

for a long time at Athelney, in Somersetshire ; and near 
Eddington he again beat the Danes. In the neighbour- 
hood of Athelney, Alfred also induced Gudrun (Gorm), 
the king of the Danish Vikings, to receive baptism. The 
oppressed inhabitants were in these parts scarcely ever 
free from the devastatiDg attacks of the Vikings and con- 
querors. The Danes frequently established themselves in 
castles near the coast, as at Exeter, in Devonshire; Dor- 
chester and Wareham, in Dorsetshire; Winchester, in 
Hampshire; and Chichester, in Sussex. At Southampton, 
in Hampshire, and under the Isle of Wight, they generally 
wintered with large fleets. Thence they made incursions 
into the land of the Anglo-Saxons; and if they could not 
entirely expel them, and colonize the south of England 
in their stead, they at least endeavoured to weaken and 
exhaust it as much as possible. 

On the whole, it would not have been very easy for the 
Danes to settle themselves entirely in any parts of the 
south, or south-west, of England; not even on the coasts 
near the harbours, though regularly visited by the ships of 
the Norwegian Vikings. The inhabitants in these parts were 
mostly of pure Saxon descent, and consequently already pre- 
judiced against the Danes, on account of the old disputes 
between the Scandinavian and Saxon races; at -all events, 
they somewhat differed from the Danes in character, man- 
ners, and customs. These districts were, besides, too re- 
mote from Denmark; and in case of an attack from the 
Anglo-Saxons, which might naturally be expected to take 
place, assistance might come too late. The Danes were not 
so safe there as on the east coast of England, which lay oppo- 
site to Jutland, and where, if any danger threatened them, a 
ship could easily be sent with a message to their friends over 
the sea, so that, with a tolerably favourable wind, a strong 
fleet could be speedily brought within sight of the Anglo- 
Saxons. The Angles, whose descendants inhabited these 
eastern and northern districts, seem too, with regard to 
language and national maimers, to have borne a greater 



Sect. IV.] SOUTH ENGLAND. 23 

resemblance to the Danes than the inhabitants of any 
other part of England, so that it was by no means difficult 
for the Danes speedily to amalgamate with them. In ad- 
dition to this, the eastern coasts offered much the same 
allurements to the Danes as the more southern provinces. 
They were remarkable for their fertility and for the riches 
of their inhabitants, acquired as well by agriculture as by 
trade with Saxony, Belgium, and Gaul. Precisely on the 
east coast, indeed, were situated at that time some of the 
largest commercial towns in England. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that, with the exception 
of London and its environs, there are not found in the 
south of England, as is the case farther north, many 
names of places of well-defined Danish or Norwegian 
origin, which have preserved the old northern forms down 
to the present day, and which thus clearly testify that a 
genuine Scandinavian population must long have lived 
there. It is only at the extremities of the coasts that an 
occasional promontory, or "Nses," and small islands whose 
names end in ey and holm, remind one of the Northmen ; 
as Flatholmes [Dan., Fladholmene) and Steepholmes in 
the Severn, where there are said to be remains of Danish 
fortifications; G-rasholm (Dan., Grsesholm), to the west 
of Pembrokeshire ; Bardsey, west of Caernarvonshire ; 
Priestholm (Dan., Praesteholm), near the northern inlet of 
the Meuai Straits ; and several others. 

In the south of England one cannot discover any 
striking resemblance to the Danes either in the language, 
features, or frame of body of the people. What they 
have chiefly left behind them here is a name, which will 
certainly never be entirely eradicated from the people's 
memory. Centuries after the Danish dominion was over- 
thrown in England, the dread of the Danes was handed 
down from one generation to another, and even to this day 
they occupy a considerable share in the remembrance of 
the English nation. Throughout England the common 
people — nay, even a great number of the more educated 



24 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IT. 

classes — know of no other inhabitants of the north of 
Europe than "the Danes;" and as they include under this 
name both Swedes and Norwegians, the idea of the unity 
of Scandinavia has unconsciously taken root amongst them. 
That they have so implicitly awarded the first place in Scan- 
dinavia to the Danes, has not originated solely from the fact 
that, anciently, the Danes were really regarded as the lead- 
ing people in the north — whence also the old Norwegian 
language was often called "donsk tunga" (Danish tongue) ; 
nor because the Danes at that time undoubtedly exercised 
a more important influence on the British Isles than the 
other inhabitants of the north: it may, likewise, have 
arisen from the circumstance that, partly in consequence 
of its situation, Denmark has continued to stand, even 
down to our time, in much closer relations both of peace 
and war with England, than Sweden has; and that the 
separation of Norway from Denmark is still too recent an 
event to have completely penetrated to the knowledge of 
the less informed part of the English people. Even had 
the remembrance of the Danes in England lain slumbering 
there, such events as the battle in Copenhagen roads in 
1801, and the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, must 
at once have brought all the old tales respecting the 
doings of the Danes in England to the lips of the English 
people. 

Legends about " the Danes" are very much disseminated 
among the people, even in the south of England. There 
is scarce a parish that has not in some way or another 
preserved the remembrance of them. Sometimes they are 
recorded to have burnt churches and castles, and to have 
destroyed towns, whose inhabitants were put to the sword ; 
sometimes they are said to have burnt or cut down 
forests; here are shown the remains of large earthen 
mounds and fortifications which they erected ; there, again, 
places are pointed out where bloody battles were fought 
with them. To this must be added the names of places ; 
as, the Danes-walls, the Danish forts, the Dane-field, the 



Sect. IV. j 



LEGENDS ABOUT THE DANES. 



25 



Dane-forest, the Danes-banks, and many others of the like 
kind. Traces of Danish castles and ramparts are not only 
found in the southern and south-eastern parts of England, 
but also quite in the south-west, in Devonshire and Corn- 
wall, where, under the name of Castelton Danis, they are 
particularly found on the sea coast. In the chalk cliffs, 
near Uffington, in Berkshire, is carved an enormous figure 
of a horse, more than 300 feet in length; which, the 
common people say, was executed in commemoration of 
a victory that King Alfred gained over the Danes in that 
neighbourhood. On the heights, near Eddington, were 
shown not long since the entrenchments, which, it was 
asserted, the Danes had thrown up in the battle with Alfred. 
On the plain near Ashdon, in Essex, where it was 
formerly thought that the battle of Ashingdon had taken 
place, are to be seen some large Danish barrows, which 
were long, but erroneously, said to contain the bones of 
the Danes who had fallen in it. The so-called dwarf- 
alder {Sambucus ebulus), which has red buds, and bears 
red berries, is said in England to have germinated from 
the blood of the fallen Danes. It is therefore also called 
Daneblood and Danewort, and flourishes principally in the 
neighbourhood of Warwick; where it is said to have 
sprung from, and been dyed by. the blood shed there, 
when Canute the Great took and destroyed the town. 

Monuments, the origin of which is in reality unknown, 
are, in the popular traditions, almost constantly attri- 
buted to the Danes. If the spade or the plough brings 
ancient arms and pieces of armour to light, it is rare that the 
labourer does not suppose them to have belonged to that 
people. But particularly if bones or joints of unusual size 
are found, they are at once concluded to be the remains of 
the gigantic Danes, whose immense bodily strength and 
never-failing courage had so often inspired their fore- 
fathers with terror. For though the Englishman has 
stories about the cruelties of the ancient Danes, their 



26 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IV. 

barbarousness, their love of drinking, and other vices, 
he has still preserved no slight degree of respect for 
Danish bravery and Danish achievements. "As brave 
as a Dane" is said to have been an old phrase in England ; 
just as " to strike like a Dane " was, not long since, a 
proverb at Rome. Even in our days Englishmen readily 
acknowledge that the Danes are " the best sailors on the 
Continent;" nay even that, themselves of course excepted, 
they are " the best and bravest sailors in all the world." 
It is, therefore, doubly natural that English legends should' 
dwell with singular partiality on the memorials of the 
Danes' overthrow. Even the popular ballads revived and 
glorified the victories of the English. Down to the very 
latest times was heard in Holmesdale, in Surrey, on the 
borders of Kent, a song about a battle which the Danes had 
lost there in the tenth century. 

Amidst the many memorials of " the bloody Danes," 
the name of Canute the Great lives in glorious remem- 
brance amongst the English people. It is significant that 
later times have ascribed to Canute the honour of im- 
portant public undertakings for the common benefit, which, 
however, at most, he can only have continued and for- 
warded. In the once marshy districts towards the 
middle of the east coast of England, there is a ditch 
several miles long, called the Devil's dyke (in Cambridge- 
shire), the formation of which is by some attributed to 
Canute, although it existed in the time of Edward the 
Elder. Canute's name is also given to a very long road 
over the morasses near Peterborough (Kinges or Cnuts- 
delfe), although it was made before his reign. Canute's 
name is also preserved in Canewdon (Canuti domus), near 
London, and close by the battle-field of Ashingdon, in 
Essex, where he is said to have frequently resided. In 
like manner a bird, said to have been brought into 
England from Denmark, has been called after him Knot 
(Lat., Tonga Canutus seu Islandica). 



Sect IT.] KING CANUTE. 27 

It niay be asserted, with truth, that not many English 
kings have left a better name behind them than Canute. 
He does not owe this only to the favour he showed the 
clergy, the authors of most of the chronicles of ancient 
times. He acquired it by his numerous and excellent 
laws, by the power he exerted in restoring order and tran- 
quillity in the kingdom, by his wisdom in suppressing the 
ancient animosities between the Danes and Anglo-Saxons, 
as well as by the care he took to promote the knowledge 
and piety of his people. He issued severe laws against 
heathenism, and endeavoured to wipe out the traces of 
his forefathers' devastations by re-building convents and 
churches. He even caused the corpse of Archbishop 
Elfeg, so cruelly murdered by the followers of Thorkel 
the Tall, to be conveyed with great solemnity from London 
to Canterbury, and deposited in the cathedral. To these 
traits may be added his many excellent personal qualities, 
his sincere repentance for the acts of violence which he 
committed in the heat of passion, and his profound hu- 
mility before God. The story of his shaming some of his 
courtiers, who flattered him when walking on the sea- 
shore whilst the tide was flowing, is, if possible, still 
better known in England than in Denmark. It would 
be difficult to find any one who is not acquainted with all 
the particulars of it, and who has not heard it stated that 
Canute, from that very day, placed his golden crown on 
the altar of Winchester cathedral, and never wore it more. 
This is one of those traits of true nobility and greatness 
of soul that are imperishable in all times and ages. 

Canute was first buried in the old convent of St. Peter's 
at Winchester; but his body was afterwards removed into 
the grand choir of the cathedral, where both his and his 
son Hardicanute's tombs are still to be seen. Over Harcli- 
canute's, in the wall that surrounds the middle of the 
choir, was placed (1661) a stone, on which a ship is carved, 
and the following inscription: — 

c 2 



£8 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IV. 

Qui jacet hie regni sceptrum tulit Hardicanutus ; 

Emmse Cnutonis gnatus et ipse fuit. 

In hac cista Lo. 1661. Obiit a.d. 1042. 

Or, " Hardicanute, who lies here, and who was a son of Emma and 

Canute, bore the kingdom's sceptre. He died in the year of our Lord 

1042, and was placed in this coffin in 1661." 



The form of the ship on the tombstone shows it to be 
of no older date than the seventeenth century; but it was 
possibly carved there because a ship of war had previously 
adorned the tomb of Hardicanute. At all events, it in- 
dicates his relationship with the powerful Scandinavian 
sea-kings, and his descent from those Northmen who for 
centuries were absolute on the ocean. 

Above the before-mentioned wall, in the grand choir, 
there stands to the left of the entrance a rather plain 
wooden coffin, decorated with a gilt crown, half fallen off, 
with the inscription: — 

" In this and another coffin, directly opposite, repose the remains of 
Kings Canute and Rufus, of Queen Emma, and of the Archbishops 
Winde and Alfvin." 



& ect. IY.J 



CANUTE S TOMB. 



•29 




In Cromwell's time, the coffins of the kings in the 
grand choir of Winchester cathedral were broken open, 
and the bones dispersed; but they were afterwards col- 
lected together, as far as this could be done, and again 
placed in the grand choir in coffins like the one just 
mentioned. Thus Canute the Great, whose ambition 
could not be bounded even by three kingdoms, has not 
retained so much as a grave for himself and his beloved 
Emma. The presentiment of the perishableness of all 
earthly power that seized him when he deposited his 
golden crown in the same place has, in truth, been ful- 
filled! 

The other royal coffins that surround the grand choir in 
Winchester contain the bones of several old Saxon kings. 
That the Danish kings Canute and Hardicanute should be 
entombed among them, in the midst of Anglo-Saxon south 
England, is a sufficient proof of the immense change that 
had taken place with regard to the Danes in England 
since their first appearance there as barbarous heathen 
Vikings. Instead of their kings seeking renown by the 
destruction of churches and convents, and by murdering or 
maltreating the clergy; instead of their despising any 
other kind of burial than that in the open fields, on hills 



BO THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. V- 

under large cairns, or monumental stones, their successors 
were now regarded as the benefactors and protectors of the 
Church, and as such worthy to repose in the most important 
ecclesiastical edifices, even in the principal district of their 
former mortal enemies. Nay, the clergy there were inde- 
fatigable in handing down their glory to the latest ages ; 
and thus a statue of Canute the Great was long to be seen 
in the cathedral of Winchester. 

But this also affords a striking proof that the Danes 
and Anglo-Saxons no longer regarded each other so much 
in the light of strangers, or with such mutual feelings of 
enmity as before ; and that Canute had thus happily 
broken through the strong barrier which had hitherto 
separated Saxon south England from Danish north 
England. 



Section V. ■ 

The Wash.— The Five Burghs.— The Humber.— York,— 
Northumberland. — Stamford Bridge. 

The Thames certainly brought many Danes in ancient 
times to the country south of Watlinga Street ; but the 
large bay on the eastern coast of England, called the 
" Wash," and the rivers Humber, Tees, and Tyne, attracted 
still more of them to the eastern and northern districts. 
The Wash especially seems to have been one of the landing 
places most in favour with them. Whether it were its 
situation, directly opposite to Jutland on the one side, and 
on the other, on a line with the fruitful midland districts 
of England ; or whether it were rather the rapid current 
which sets in there that attracted the ships of the Vikings, 
is a point that we must leave undecided. This much, 
however, is certain, that the first and richest settlements 
of the Danes were around this bay ; and from it afterwards 
extended itself quite up to the frontiers of Scotland, the 
so-called " Danelagh;" which was a district so considerable 
as to comprise fifteen of the thirty-two counties, or shires. 



Sect. V.] THE FIVE BUKGHS. 31 

then existing in England, and amongst them the extensive 
county of Northumberland. 

South of the Wash, and extending towards the Thames, 
lay East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk); which, a century after 
the commencement of the Vikings' expeditions, was already 
in the hands of the Danes. Alfred the Great was com- 
pelled to cede it, together with several adjacent tracts of 
country, by formal treaty, to the Danish King Gudrun, or 
Gorm. It is certain that it had at that time, like Kent, 
received many Danish settlers, particularly from the 
neighbouring Jutland, and their number continually in- 
creased. Yet in East Anglia they seem to have been 
scarcely more in a condition to compete with the Anglo- 
Saxons, in regard to population and power, than in Kent. 
It was only on the coast, and indeed only on that of 
Norfolk, that they had any settlements, as the Scandina- 
vian names of places still preserved there show. These 
districts lay too near to the main strength of the Anglo- 
Saxons. The Saxon inhabitants did not easily suffer 
themselves to be expelled, and the Danish dominion there 
could not, consequently, become of permanent importance. 

But to the north and west of the Wash the Danes 
obtained a very different footing. In the province called 
Mercia (or the Marches), which formed the centre of 
England, and in that of Lindisse (or, in old Norsk, Lin- 
disey), which extended from the Wash to the Humber, they 
were not only in possession of a great number of villages 
and landed estates, which they had selected to settle on, 
but had likewise made themselves masters of several 
towns, and particularly the five strong fortresses of Stam- 
ford, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln. These 
places, which as early as Alfred's reign belonged to the 
Danes, and which were distinguished by their size, their 
commerce, and their wealth, obtained the name of " The 
Five Burghs " (Femborgene). They formed, as it were, a 
little separate state, and possessed in common their own 
courts of judicature, and other peculiar municipal institu- 



33 THE DANES IK ENGLAND. [Sect. V. 

tions. The hostile and dangerous neighbourhood of the 
Saxons naturally compelled them to coalesce together as 
much as possible ; and for a very long period they formed 
the chief support of the Danish power in England. 
Protected by them from all attacks from the south, the 
Scandinavian settlers were enabled securely to continue 
establishing themselves in the more northern districts. 
To arrest the sudden attacks of the Britons in the west, 
the Danes also had, on the north-eastern frontier of Wales, 
the city of Chester, whose name [Anglo-Saxon, Lsegeceaster, 
from the Latin castra, a camp) shows that it had been a 
fortified place still earlier, under the Romans. 

Chester formed one of the principal entrances from 
Wales into the midland parts of England, as well as into 
what was then called Northumberland : under which name 
was comprised, at least by the Danes and Norwegians, all 
the country to the north of the rivers Mersey and Humber, 
from sea to sea, and up to the Scottish frontier. Covered 
by the " Five Burghs," it was here that the greater part of 
Danish England lay. It was a country filled, particularly 
in the north-west, with mountains, and intersected by 
numerous rivers. Near these, valleys opened themselves 
in every direction, of which the largest and most consider- 
able lay around the tributary streams of the Humber, in 
what is now Yorkshire. A separate kingdom had existed 
here from the oldest times ; and here the Danes, like the 
Britons, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxons before them, 
possessed the most important city in the north of England. 
Built on the river Ouse, which falls into the Humber, it 
carried on an extensive trade ; and, as the principal seat of 
the Northumbrian kings and chiefs, was doubly important. 
The Britons called it " Caer Eabhroig," or " Eabhruc," the 
Romans " Eboracum," the Anglo-Saxons " Eoforwie," and 
the Danes "Jorvik;" whence it is plain that the form 
" York," now in use, is derived. 

The Humber and York were for the north of England 
much what the Thames and London were for the south. 



Sect. V.] DEATH OF REGNER LODBROG. 33 

It is not therefore surprising that York came to possess 
within its walls the largest and most splendid cathedral in 
England, which still towers aloft, a proud and awe-inspiring- 
monument of the power and religious enthusiasm of the 
middle ages ; nor that the history of York comprises, so to 
speak, the whole of that of Northumberland. 

The soil of south England received the dust of the 
Christian Danish kings, and of Canute the Great, the 
hero of Christendom. But the north of England held 
the bones of many a mighty Danish chieftain, who had 
never renounced his belief in the ancient gods; and, in 
the neighbourhood of York, one of the most renowned of 
heathen heroes, King Regner Lodbrog, met his death. 
The names of Regner and his sons were reverenced and 
feared in England from their earlier Viking expeditions. 
When about to invade England, he suffered shipwreck, 
and together with only a few of his men saved himself on 
the coast of Northumberland. The Saxon king, Ella, 
advanced against him from York; a battle ensued, and, 
after the bravest resistance, Regner was overcome and 
made a prisoner. With true northern pride he would not 
make himself known to Ella, who caused him to be thrown 
into a pen filled with snakes ; and it was not till the dying 
Regner had sung his swan's-song, " Grynte vilde Grisene, 
kjendte de Galtens Skjebne " (How the young pigs would 
grunt if they knew the old boar's fate), that Ella too late 
observed to his terror that he had exposed himself to the 
fearful vengeance of the king's sons ; who, guided by 
the shrewd Ivar Beenlbse, had long been silently pre- 
paring for the conquest of Ella's kingdom. Ella was 
vanquished and made prisoner; and, according to the 
Norwegian legend, Regner's sons, to avenge their father's 
miserable death, caused a blood-eagle to be carved on 
Ella's back. The place of Ella's death is said by some to 
have been near the town of " Ellescroft," or Ella's Grave. 
The English accounts make Regner's sons, Ingvar and 
Ubbe, revenge their father's death in the year 870, by 

c 3 



34 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. V. 

murdering in a most horrible manner King Edmund (who 
was afterwards canonized) at the castle of iEglesdon, in 
East Anglia. They shot at him as at a mark, then cut off 
his head, and lastly laid the body among thorns, in the 
same forest where their father had been put to death. 

Ivar Beenlose (the Boneless) succeeded to the kingdom 
of Northumberland after Ella ; where also such names of 
subsequent kings as Sigtryg, Regnald, Godfred, Anlaf 
(Olaf ), and Heric (Erik), unmistakably show their Scandi- 
navian origin. In Olaf's time, at the beginning of the 
tenth century, the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstane (Adel- 
steen) succeeded in subjecting Northumberland, whilst 
Denmark and Norway, as before-mentioned, were prevented 
by internal distractions from sending any effectual assist- 
ance to the Danes in England. Olaf fled to Ireland, and 
Godfred to Scotland, to assemble the Scandinavian warriors 
in those parts, and Athelstane in the mean time destroyed 
the Danish castle in York. It is related that Olaf returned 
with more than six hundred ships, and again took possession 
of York. He had with him a great number of Northmen 
and Danes from Ireland and Scotland, together with a 
great many Celtic Cymri and Britons, and the Scottish 
King Constantine was also in his army. Athelstane and 
this brother Edmund arrayed a mighty force against them 
at Brunanborg (Bromford?), where, in the year 937, a 
battle was fought; which, though unfavourable to the 
Danes, afforded the old northern bards matter for enthu- 
siastic song, of which the Sagas have still preserved some 
remains. Subsequently a treaty with King Edmund, in 
941, gave Olaf the dominion over the country east and 
north of Watlinga- Street ; but the dispute soon broke out 
afresh. After the death of the Northumbrian King Erik 
in 951, Northumberland ceased to be a kingdom. From 
this time it became an earldom (Jarledomme), which was, 
however, for the most part, almost entirely independent of 
the Anglo-Saxon kings, and governed by Norwegian chief- 
tains. For a long time it constantly received fresh inha- 



Sect. V.] EAELDOM OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 35 

bitants from the mother countries, Denmark and Norway. 
Many Norwegians came over; nay, even the King Erik 
just mentioned may possibly have been the renowned 
Norwegian King Erik Blodoxe, a son of Harald Haarfager, 
the first absolute sovereign of Norway. After the death 
of Harald, Erik became chief sovereign in Norway; but 
he and his queen, the notorious Gunhilde, ruled here with 
so much cruelty, that the Norwegians gave Erik the sur- 
name of Blodoxe (Blood-axe). Driven from his kingdom, 
he at length repaired to Northumberland, where King 
Athelstane is said to have made him a tributary king, and 
where, after many vicissitudes of fortune, he met his 
death. 

Between the Northumbrian Jarledomme — whence the 
dignity of the Northern " Jarls" began to extend itself to 
the rest of England, which has still preserved it in the 
title of " Earl" — as well as between the Danish part of 
England and the proper kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons in 
general, disputes must naturally have prevailed of a more 
or less sanguinary kind. As a necessary consequence of 
this, the Danish kings, in their later expeditions against 
the Anglo-Saxons for the purpose of conquest, resorted to, 
and sought support in, the Danish part of the north of 
England, in the districts near the Humber. In the year 
1013, King Svend Tveskjaeg anchored in this river with a 
powerful fleet, when he came over to conquer England. In 
conjunction with his son Canute, who afterwards completed 
the conquest, he had previously lain at anchor at Sandvik 
(Sandwich), in Kent. From the Humber he anchored in 
the river Trent, at Gegnesburgh (or Gainsborough), in Lin- 
colnshire ; whence he harried the whole of eastern, and 
part of southern England. The Old Danish land to the 
north of Watlinga-Strset was the first to pay him homage : 
the rest of England soon yielded to him, and King 
Ethelred was obliged to fly to Normandy. But just as 
Svend, in the midst of his victorious career, had returned 
to Gainsborough — just as he was fleecing and levying con- 



36 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect-V. 

tributions both on laity and clergy — he suddenly fell from 
his horse at an assize, or Thing, in a fit of illness, and died 
the following night, the 3rd of February, 1014. Monkish 
chronicles relate that it was St. Edmund who killed him. 
Ethelred, who now returned to England, in vain ordered a 
strict search to be made for the body of Svend, with the 
view of wreaking a cowardly vengeance on the impotent 
corpse of the man who, wdien alive, had been so terrible an 
antagonist to him. But the body had been secretly con- 
veyed to York, where it was kept concealed during the 
winter (but scarcely in the cathedral, although that church 
had been founded long before, and was, perhaps, even con 
siderably enlarged by the Norwegian princes who resided 
at York). Towards the spring it was brought over to 
Denmark by some Englishwomen, who were probably of 
Scandinavian extraction, and placed in the cathedral of 
Koeskilde, in one of the pillars in the grand choir. 

Under the Danish rule, the Danish-Norwegian popula- 
tion in the north of England increased considerably, both 
in strength and numbers ; although Christianity, by the 
wise arrangements of Canute, and particularly by his 
severe laws against heathenism, was almost completely 
disseminated there. Even after the Dauish dominion had 
come to an end by the death of Hardicanute in 1042, and 
the Anglo-Saxon kings had again taken the helm, the old 
warlike spirit of the north continued, in spite of Chris- 
tianity, to stir in the Northumbrian people. The suc- 
cessors of the Vikings still preferred, to a natural death, a 
glorious one on the field of battle ; but Christian tenets no 
longer permitted them to be marked, when on the bed of 
sickness, with the point of a spear, in order to consecrate 
themselves to Odin, according to the heathen custom. 
The mighty Danish jarl Sivard (Sigeward or Siwerd) 
reigned over them at that time, who had fought in many 
battles both in England and Scotland, whereby his name 
became immortalized in Shakspeare's " Macbeth." When 
the news was brought to him that his son had fallen in 



Sect. V.] DEATH OF HARALD HAARDRAADE. 37 

battle, he inquired whether he had received his death 
wound in front or behind. Being answered, " Before ; " — 
" In that case," he exclaimed, I have reason to rejoice, for 
no other death was befitting my son, or me." When 
Siward himself afterwards lay on his death-bed, and felt 
the approach of dissolution, an old chronicler (Henry of 
Huntingdon) represents him as breaking out into sorrowful 
complaints, and exclaiming, " How shameful it is for me, 
that I have never been able to meet death in my numerous 
battles, but have been reserved to die with disgrace like an 
old cow. Clothe me at least in my impenetrable armour, 
gird me with my sword, cover my head with my helmet, 
place my shield in my left, and my gilded axe in my right 
hand, that I, the bold warrior, may also die like one." 
Attired in full armour, he passed gladly to his fathers in 
the year 1055, and doubtless with the secret hope of 
enjoying in Valhalla a continuation of that proud martial 
life for which there would soon have been no longer room 
either in Northumberland or in the parent lands of Scan- 
dinavia. 

Shortly after the death of Siward, the country near 
York also became the theatre where one of the last 
celebrated Vikings of the north fell. Harald Haardraade 
was indeed a Christian, and a king in Norway; but with 
him, as with many of his cotemporaries, Christianity 
dwelt only on his lips. In his heart he was still the bold 
Viking, who valued Hildurs bloody game more than holy 
psalms, and who preferred conquest on foreign shores to 
the peaceful government of an hereditary kingdom. Whilst 
still young he had distinguished himself in expeditions in 
the East, and in the Greek Empire. It seemed to him 
disgraceful that those lands, particularly in the north of 
England, which had once belonged to his forefathers, 
should for ever be wrested from Norway. He therefore 
agreed to assist Toste Godvinson against his brother, the 
English King Harald Godvinson; but on the condition that 
he himself, if he succeeded in conquering Harald, should 



38 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

have the dominion of England, whilst Toste was to have 
the half of it as jarl, or earl. They landed in the 
Humber ; but in the battle which shortly afterwards took 
place (in 1066) at Stamford Bridge, a little to the east of 
York, both Toste and Harald fell. Thus the latter gained 
no more of England's soil than the English King Harald 
had offered him before the battle, namely, " seven feet of 
earth, or as much as he was taller than other men." 

This was one of the last serious attempts on the part of 
Denmark or Norway to re-conquer England ; and in the 
same year the Normans, after the battle of Hastings, in 
which King "Harald fell, seized the kingdom which their 
Danish kinsmen had formerly possessed. William the 
Conqueror went in person against the Northumbrians ; but 
before he disembarked he is said to have broken up the 
tumulus on the coast (by the Humber ?) in which, according 
to the legend, Regner Lodbrog's son, Ivar Beenlbse, had 
ordered himself to be buried, in order to avert the attacks 
of foreigners. William had to combat long before he could 
reduce Northumberland ; but, as we shall afterwards see, he 
never succeeded in subduing that spirit of freedom and 
independence which the Danes and Norwegians had planted 
there. 



Section VI. 



Danish-Norwegian Memorials in the North of England. — Coins. — 
The Raven.— The Danish Flag. 

If even the old Saxon south England is distinguished by 
its richness in legends and still -existing memorials of the 
Danes, it is natural that they should be met with in still 
greater numbers in the old Danish districts to the north 
and east of Watlinga-Straet. 

Here also the Norwegian saint, " St. Olave," has been 
zealously worshipped, both in the country and in the 
towns. In Norfolk (East Anglia) there is a bridge called 
" St. Olave's Bridge." In itself it is a remarkable monu- 



Sect. VI.] SAINT OLAVE. 39 

merit of a time when bridges over rivers were regarded as 
such considerable and important structures that, like 
churches, they were named after, or dedicated to saints ; 
in ancient Scandinavia they even built bridges, as several 
runic stones testify, " for their souls' salvation." In the 
city of Chester, on the northern frontier of Wales, there 
is to be found in the southern outskirts, opposite the old 
castle and close to the river Dee, a church and parish 
which still bear the name of St. Olave. By the church 
runs a street called " St. Olave's Lane." In the north- 
west part of York there is likewise a St. Olave's church, 
said to be the remains of a monastery founded by the 
powerful Danish Jarl Siward, who was himself buried there 
in the year 1055. There can be no doubt that similar 
churches dedicated to St. Olave were scattered about in 
other towns of north England, where further researches 
might possibly yet discover at least some of them. 

These traces of the importance formerly conferred on 
St. Olave in the towns of north England lead one to con- 
jecture that, even after the Danish ascendancy in England 
was annihilated, a great number of Northmen must have 
continued to reside there, as was the Case in London. 
This is so much the more natural, as, long before the 
Norman Conquest, the Northmen preponderated in many, 
perhaps in most, mercantile towns of the north of England, 
and particularly in the fortified towns occupied by the 
Danes. At the time of the Conquest, the population in 
some of the largest and most important cities towards the 
east coast, such as Lincoln and York, is said to have been 
almost exclusively of Scandinavian extraction; hence it 
was that Lincoln and York, at least, preserved their 
original Scandinavian " husting " throughout the middle 
ages, and even later. 

In and about the last-named city, which was the chief 
place in Danish north England, are numerous Scandi- 
navian memorials. The names of several streets in York 
end in gate. In London, where the same termination of 



40 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

the names of streets frequently occurs, some have, indeed, 
endeavoured to derive this gate from the gates which these 
streets adjoined ; and, as far as regards London, this ex- 
planation may prohably in most cases be correct. But in 
York, where formerly there were at least a score of such 
streets, it is certainly by no means a probable conjecture 
that twenty gates existed from which their names were de- 
rived ; and it therefore becomes a question whether these 
gates should not be derived from the old Scandinavian 
" gata " (a street), particularly when they appear in com- 
pound names, such as Petersgate (Petersgade), Marygate 
(Mariegade), Fishergate (Fiskergade), Stonegate (Steen- 
gade), Micklegate (from the old Scandinavian " my kill," 
signifying great) ; which have a striking resemblance with 
Scandinavian names of streets ; nay, there is even a legend 
respecting Godram, or Guthramgate, that it was named 
after a Danish chieftain, Guthrum or Gorm, who is said 
to have dwelt there. The historical accounts of the num- 
ber and influence of the Northmen in York cannot but 
strengthen these suppositions in a high degree. 

North-east of York, on the coast towards the German 
ocean, is a promontory called " Flamborough-head." It 
is separated from the main land by an immense rampart 
said to have been raised by the Danes, and called on that 
account " the Danes' Dyke," behind which they intrenched 
themselves on landing. At no great distance, near Great 
Driffield, is "the Danes' Dale," and "the Danes' Graves," 
where remains of the Danes who fell in a battle are said 
to have been dug up. South of York, on the Humber, 
between Bichal and Skipwith, human bones and pieces of 
iron have likewise been found in several barrows, or 
tumuli, ascribed to the Danes. It is supposed that the 
Danes and Norwegians landed in this neighbourhood at 
different times, when proceeding up the Humber on their 
warlike expeditions. 

The popular legend of the bloody battle by Stamford 
Bridge, or, as it was afterwards called, " Battle Bridge," is 



Sect. VI.J BATTLE OF STAMFOKD BKIDGE. 41 

not yet obsolete. A piece of ground near the bridge over 
the river Derwent is called " Battle-flats," and in the 
surrounding fields, where, for about a century after the 
battle, large heaps of human bones were to be seen, joint- 
bones, together with iron swords and other weapons, have 
been ploughed up, as well as horse-shoes that would be 
suitable for the small Norwegian horses. The English 
chronicles which describe this battle are lavish in their 
praises of a Norwegian, who, in the midst of the fight, 
stood quite alone on the bridge over the Derwent, and for 
several hours kept Harald Godvinson's whole army at bay, 
until at length a man glided under the bridge and. ran him 
through from below with a spear. The inhabitants of the 
village of Stamford Bridge have to the present day kept 
up the custom of celebrating this deed at an annual fes- 
tival, by making puddings in the form of a vessel or trough ; 
for, as the legend states, it was in a trough that the slayer 
of the Norwegian passed under the bridge. It is certain, 
however, that the river Derwent hereabouts has only lately 
been made navigable. 

It would lead us too far to relate, even in an abbreviated 
form, all the legends, or to reckon up all the numerous 
memorials, which, to the north of Watlinga- Street, are 
connected with the Danes. It is not only the common 
people in England who in general ascribe every ancient 
monument of any importance to the Danes ; there was a 
time, and no very distant one, when many learned men 
were but too much inclined to do the same. In proof of 
this it suffices to remark that the celebrated circle of 
stones at Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire — >. 
the most superb monument of its kind in the British Islands, 
or even in the whole of northern Europe — was also at 
one time described by the learned as a Danish place of 
sacrifice, although it is clearly distinguished, both by its 
structure and whole appearance, from the ancient monu- 
ments of Scandinavia ; and although, on the contrary, the 
highest degree of probability proclaims its having origi- 



42 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

nated from the older inhabitants of England, the ancient 
Britons. It is undoubtedly true, that want of adequate 
experience and knowledge was generally the real cause 
why the learned were never able to distingish, with cer- 
tainty, between what ancient monuments were really 
Danish and what were not. Nevertheless they would 
assuredly never have given the Danes credit for so many 
monuments, at the expense of their own countrymen and 
ancestors, had they not acknowledged that the immigration 
and settlement of the Danes in England was of the most 
widely-extended importance. 

Even in our days English antiquarians are not disin- 
clined to ascribe British, Roman, or Anglo-Saxon anti- 
quities to the Danes ; as well as to suppose, on the whole, 
that there are more monuments of the Danes extant in 
England, than, strictly speaking, that people can validly 
claim. 

At first sight it might indeed appear that the Danes, 
who so early, and for so long a period, had extensive pos- 
sessions in the north of England, must have left there a 
great number of tumuli, stone circles, and cairns ; as well 
as, in consequence of their numberless fights and battles, 
a considerable quantity of entrenchments. It is suffici- 
ently known how careful the old Northmen were to hand 
down to posterity the memory of a hero, and of his deeds. 
The doctrines of Odin even commanded it, as a sacred 
duty, to erect bauta-stones in memory of the brave ; which 
is one of the principal reasons why Scandinavia is distin- 
guished, even down to modern times, by such a striking' 
abundance of ancient monuments. 

But with regard to England, we must not forget that 
the inhabitants of the central and northern parts had for 
centuries been Christians when the heathen Danes began 
to make conquests there. Among the Danes, as among 
the Northmen in general, the belief in their ancient gods 
had been weakened, and faith in their own power and 
strength had frequently usurped its place. Living among 



Sect. VI.] DANISH ANTIQUITIES. 43 

Christians in a foreign land, and doubtless, also, often mar- 
rying native females, they easily adopted, at least in form, 
the novel doctrines of Christianity, and with them the 
customs which they brought in their train. They soon re- 
nounced the usage of placing the dead in mounds, after 
the heathen manner, and of providing them with the 
weapons and ornaments which were dearest to them when 
alive. The bodies were buried in churchyards, or in the 
churches themselves ; and the precious things which were 
formerly thought to secure for the hero an honourable seat 
in Valhalla, now for the most part remained above ground, 
where they generally found their way into the pocket of 
the monk, in order that he might deliver the deceased 
from purgatory by masses for his soul, and procure him an 
easy entrance into the kingdom of heaven. By degrees, 
as the Danes abandoned themselves to the influence of the 
higher civilization of England, they must also have 
adopted the most essential parts of the English dress, or 
at all events English ornaments ; and consequently, even 
if only some few of these were deposited in the barrows, 
it became almost impossible to decide, when these graves 
were opened after a long lapse of time, whether it were 
Danes or Anglo-Saxons who had been originally interred 
in them. 

Thus it is easily explained why but, proportionally, very 
few really Danish or Scandinavian barrows and monumental 
stones are to be found in England. We must not ascribe it to 
the progress of agriculture alone that, even in the north 
of England, we may search the fields in vain for stones, 
which, by runic inscriptions in the ancient language of 
Scandinavia, have preserved the remembrance of some 
distinguished warrior from the eastern lands beyond the 
sea. It is but rarely that one can even fancy that he has 
met with a Scandinavian runic stone ; but a closer inspec- 
tion will soon show that both the runes, and particularly 
the language in which the inscriptions are couched, betray 
a foreign, and especially an Anglo-Saxon, origin. The 



44 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

most important runic stone in these northern districts is 
found near the English border, in the Scotch town of 
Ruthwell, on the other side of Solway Firth. It is of 
considerable height, and is ornamented with a number of 
carvings of biblical scenes, mingled with figures of leaves, 
birds, and animals. Besides Latin inscriptions indicating 
and explaining these Christian carvings, there is a runic 
inscription on the stone which was long considered, both 
by British and Scandinavian archaeologists, to be Danish, or 
at least to contain remnants of the old Scandinavian lan- 
guage. But it is now shown to be derived neither from 
the Danes nor Norwegians, but from the Anglo-Saxons, 
as the supposed Scandinavian inscription includes some 
verses of an old devotional Anglo-Saxon poem. The 
whole appearance of the stone, also, is rather Saxon than 
Danish. The runic characters are, in part at least, dif- 
ferent from those of Scandinavia, and the words are not, 
as in them, separated by points. Ornaments with similar 
so-called Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions are not altogether 
uncommon in England, particularly in the north. But 
as not a few ornaments, as well as runic stones with in- 
scriptions in the self-same character, are also found in the 
countries of Scandinavia, both in Denmark and Norway, 
and particularly the latter, and the west and south of 
Sweden (and there mostly in Bleking), it may be a question 
whether this runic writing was not originally brought over 
to England by Scandinavian emigrants. It would other- 
wise be inexplicable that they should have used entirely 
foreign runic characters in Scandinavia, whilst they pos- 
sessed a peculiar and genuine Scandinavian runic writing 
of their own. The true state of the matter will not, how- 
ever, be brought to light till antiquarians succeed in ex- 
plaining, in a satisfactory manner, the inscriptions with 
Anglo-Saxon runes that are found in England as well as 
in Scandinavia, and which, for the most part, have not 
hitherto been deciphered. 

It is a matter of course that arms and ornaments should 



Sect. VI. 



DANISH SWORDS. 



45 



be at times dug up in 
England that belonged 
to Scandinavian Vikings, 
who found either death 
or a new habitation on 
the English shore. In 
the rivers on the eastern 
coast, where the Vikings' 
ships showed themselves 
so regularly, and where 
remains of these ships 
are supposed to be now 
and then discovered, iron 
swords have been found, 
as for instance in the 
Thames, of undoubted 
Scandinavian origin. (Fig. 
] .) They are in general 
longer and heavier than 
the Saxon sword (Fig. 
2), and are superior to 
them from having a guard, 
and a large, and com- 
monly triangular, knob at 
the hilt. On the other 
hand, they are exactly of 
the same kind as our 
Scandinavian swords of 
what is called "the iron 
age ; " that is, they belong 
to the latest period of 
heathenism. The Vikings, 
who often had to combat 
from their ships, and who, 
being few in number, were 
so much the more obliged 
to depend on their arms 



Fig. 1. 



j> <* 



SI 



Fig. 2 



J 



\* 



f 



V / 






V 




46 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

and the strength of their weapons, were necessarily 
compelled to have them both long and good. " Danish 
battle-axes" are usually mentioned in the old English 
and Frankish chronicles as excellent and dangerous wea- 
pons of attack. Nay, even from the distant Myklegaard, or 
Constantinople, where the Northmen, under the name of 
Varangians, served for a long series of years as the Greek 
Emperor's bodyguard, stories have reached us of the 
particular kind of battle-axes which they wielded with 
such strength. These axes, like the swords, were frequently 
inlaid with silver or gold, and were of excellent workman- 
ship. It is also related by Giraldus Cambrensis that the 
Irish procured their battle-axes from the Northmen. The 
Danes in England, at least towards the latter part of their 
sway, are likewise said to have used shirts of mail, or 
chain armour, in which, however, the rings were not in- 
terlaced, but sewed on by the side of each other ; helmets, 
with iron bands that covered the nose ; and lastly, large 
pointed triangular shields. Some are even of opinion that 
these coats of mail were commonly black, and that this 
gave rise to the Danes being sometimes called " the black 
Danes." Others derive this surname from the colour of 
their hair and skin, which must at that time have been 
in general considered darker than the Norwegian com- 
plexion ; whilst others, again, infer that the Danes generally 
used black sails for their ships, and the Norwegians white. 
The Scotch and Irish distinguish clearly between " Dub- 
gall" or the black stranger (whence the present name 
Dugai), and " Finngall," or the fair stranger. Old Irish 
authors also call the inhabitants of Denmark " Dubloch- 
lannoch" (dark Lochlans), and the inhabitants of Norway 
" Finnlochlannoch " (fair Lochlans). Lochlan is with them 
the usual appellation of Scandinavia. 

Besides their arms, the ornaments and decorations of 
the Danes and Norwegians were also of a peculiar kind ; 
at least they are in general clearly different from the 
Anglo-Saxon ornaments now discovered in graves in Eng- 



Sect. VI.] COINS. 47 

land. As the Danish and British antiquities of the 
earlier, or what is called the bronze period, betray a con- 
siderable and well-defined difference, so also a comparison 
between the corresponding antiquities of the iron period 
will clearly show, that even if Eoman taste formed the 
basis of art both among the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes 
and Norwegians during the last-named period, yet that 
each people followed its own independent course. That 
the Northmen, consequently, were not exclusively indebted 
to England for all that fresh development of taste which 
predominated at the close of heathenism and commence- 
ment of Christianity, but that they had themselves, before 
the Conquest of England, already made a great step in 
advance, was however no more than what one might expect 
from a people capable of building ships that crossed the 
Atlantic, and who were acquainted with, and frequently 
used, a peculiar sort of writing, the Northern runes. 

But though, at present at least, it is scarcely possible 
to point out in England proper a single runic memo- 
rial of undoubted Danish or Norwegian origin, still there 
are found at times, particularly in north England, certain 
antiquities, with inscriptions that perfectly supply the want 
of those illustrations which the runic stones would other- 
wise afford, respecting the influence and settlements of the 
Northmen in England. These are small silver coins 
struck by Danish-Norwegian kings and jarls during their 
dominion there. I do not allude, of course, to coins of 
such kings as Canute the Great, Harald Harefoot, and 
Hardicanute ; for as these princes held a confirmed domi- 
nion in England — and that at a time when coining was 
general in Europe, and when on the whole the light of 
history begins to shine clearer — there would be nothing 
strange, nor particularly instructive in an historical point 
of view, that they also had coined money. I refer to 
coins of Danish-Norwegian chiefs, whose deeds in England 
the chronicles have related either sparingly or not at all, 



48 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect VI. 

and who lived more than a century before the Conquest by 
Canute the Great. 

A short stay would easily have sufficed to erect a runic 
or bauta-stone ; and great and imminent indeed must have 
been the danger which threatened the Northman of the 
olden time if he omitted, even on a foreign soil, to perform 
the last honours for a fallen friend or relative. But a coin 
was not so quickly minted. The countries of Scandinavia 
had not a mintage of their own before the year 1000, or 
thereabout; when the Danish king, Svend Tveskjaeg, 
having brought home with him from his expedition into 
England, a quantity of Anglo-Saxon coins, began to have 
them imitated. The Scandinavian Viking, to whom coin- 
ing was a strange and unknown art, had enough to do, 
during a short and dangerous expedition for conquest, to 
procure a footing and support for his army; and if he 
failed in conquering a kingdom, hew 7 as glad to bring home 
as booty some pounds of foreign money. It was only 
when he had made himself king or jarl over a considerable 
district, and when he had begun to exchange his wild war- 
rior's life for the milder occupations of peace, that he could 
have leisure to reflect that he also, like other princes in 
England, should promote his people's welfare and his 
own advantage by ordering those coins to be minted which 
are so important for trade and commerce. The older 
the dates of such Danish-Norwegian coins struck in 
England — the rarer the minting of coins in general, 
even in the more enlightened countries — so much the more 
clearly is the existence proved of well-established Scandi- 
navian kingdoms, where works of peace were already 
capable of thriving. 

Some few years ago (1840), a highly remarkable and very 
ancient treasure of silver was discovered near Cuerdale in 
Lancashire, within the boundaries of the ancient Northum- 
berland. It consisted of bars, armlets, a great number of 
pieces of broken rings and other ornaments, as well as 



Sect. VI.] COINS. 49 

about seven thousand coins, all of which were inclosed in 
a leaden chest. To judge from the coins, which, with a 
few exceptions, were minted between the years 815 and 
930, the treasure must have been buried in the first half 
of the tenth century, or almost a hundred years before the 
time of Canute the Great. Amongst the coins, besides a 
6ingle Byzantine piece, were found several Arabic or Kufic, 
some of north Italy, about a thousand French, and two 
thousand eight hundred Anglo-Saxon pieces, of which only 
eight hundred were of Alfred the Great. But the chief 
mass, namely, three thousand pieces, consisted of peculiar 
coins, with the inscriptions, " Siefredus Rex," " Sievert 
Rex," " Cnut Rex," " Alfden Rex," and " Sitric Comes" 
(jarl) ; and which, therefore, merely from their preponder- 
ating number, may be supposed to have been the most 
common coins at that time, and in that part of north Eng- 
land where the treasure had been concealed. Cnut's coins 
were the most numerous, as they amounted to about two 
thousand pieces of different dies; which proves a con- 
siderable and long-continued coining. 

Not only are the names Sitric (Sigtryg), Alfden (Halv- 
dan), Cnut (Knud), Sievert (Sivard), and Siefred (Sigfred), 
visibly of Scandinavian origin, but they also appear in 
ancient chronicles as the names of mighty Scandinavian 
chiefs, who in the ninth and tenth centuries ravaged the 
western lands. 




Sitric Comes is certainly that Sitric Jarl who fell in a battle 
in England about the year 900. Alfden is undoubtedly 
the same king " Halfden," who at the close of the ninth 
century so often harried south England, — where he even 

D 



50 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 



[Sect. VI. 



besieged London — till he fell in the battle at Wednesfield 
in 910. Cnut, whose name is found inscribed on the coins 
in such a manner that one letter stands on each of the four 
arms of a cross, whilst the inscription R, E, X. (Rex) is 
inclosed between them, 




is probably he whom the Danes called " Knud Daneast" (or 
the Danes' Joy), a son of the first Danish monarch Gorm 
the Old ; as it is truly related of him that he perished in 
Vesterviking (or the western lands). Sigfred must either 
have been the celebrated Viking king for whose adven- 
turous expedition France, and its capital Paris in particular, 
had to pay dearly ; or that Sigefert, or Sigfred, who in the 
vear 897 ravaged the English coasts with an army of 
Danes from Northumberland. 




The steady connection which the Vikings in England 
maintained with France affords a natural explanation why 
their coins were imitations both of contemporary English, 
or Anglo-Saxon, and of French coins. Thus on the 
reverse of Cnut's coins just mentioned, we sometimes 
find, as on that engraved above, the inscription "Elfred 
Rex," which is purely Anglo-Saxon; and sometimes the 
particular mark for Carolus, or Charles (Karl), which 
otherwise is only found on the French Carlovingian coins. 



Sect. VI. J 



COINS. 



51 




A very frequent inscription on the Scandinavian coins 
here alluded to, as for instance in the last engraving, is 
" Ebraice Civita," or " The city of York; " whose ancient 
name " Eabhroig," and in the barbarous Latin of the time 
" Eboracum," was converted into " Ebraice." On other 
contemporary coins struck at York, namely on some of 
what is called St. Peter's money, York is also called 
"Ebracec" and " Ebraicit." For the Cuerdale coins, in 
order to express the name "Ebraice," coins of French 
kings of the city of "Ebrox^.s," or Evreux, in Normandy, 
seem to have been particularly chosen as patterns ; for 
by a slight change of a few letters this Ebroicas could be 
converted into Ebraice ; which was the easier process 
at a time when the art of stamping coins was not much 
practised. An additional proof that these coins were 
really minted by Scandinavian kings in Northumberland, 
and in the city of York, is, that none such have been found 
in any other part of England ; whilst, on the contrary, one 
of Canute's coins, which have been so frequently men- 
tioned, was dug up, together with English and French 
coins of the same kind as those found at Cuerdale, 
at Harkirke near Crosby, also in Lancashire; and con- 
sequently at places whose names ending in kirke (church) 
and by (town), bear witness no less than that of Cuerdale 
(from dal, a valley) to the dominion of the Northmen in 
those parts. 

Should any doubt still exist that, so early as the ninth 
century, Danish-Norwegian kings and jarls minted a con- 
siderable number of coins in York, in imitation of contem- 
porary Anglo-Saxon and French coins, it is at all events 
certain that the Northumbrian kings Regnald, Anlafor 

d 2 



52 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 



[Sect. VI. 



Olaf, and Erik, who resided in York during the first half 
of the tenth century, caused coins of their own to be 
minted there, and which agree exactly with the historical 
accounts. Eegnald, who reigned from about 912 to 944, 
was a son of King Sigtryg, and brother to the Olaf before 
mentioned, who fought the battle of Brunanborg; Erik 
( + 951) is either King Erik Blodoxe of Norway, or a son 
of King Harald Blaatand of Denmark, who is said to have 
ruled in Northumberland about the same time. 

In the main points these coins are also imitations of the 
Anglo-Saxon, but are distinguished from them by various 
and very striking peculiarities, which show them to have 
been coined both by Danes, or Norwegians, and by con- 
querors. Erik designates himself on them by the Latin 
title " Hex," as was usual at that time even among the 
Anglo-Saxons ; but Regnal d and Anlaf use the pure 
Northern title " Cununc;" or, in the Icelandic mode 
of writing, Konungr, the ancient Scandinavian word for 
King. Some of these coins have martial emblems which 
do not appear on the Anglo-Saxon coins of the same 
period, and which, therefore, were clearly intended to be 
in honour of the warlike qualities and victories of the 
Northmen. Erik's coins have a sword of the peculiar 
Scandinavian form, with a triangular pummel at the end of 
the hilt. 




Similar swords are also seen on the St. Peter's money 
before mentioned, coined at York during the rule of the 
Scandinavian kings. One of these coins represents a bent 
bow with the arrow on it, and on the reverse a sledge- 
hammer, or battle-axe. 



Sect. VI.] 



COINS. 



53 




Regnald's and Anlaf 's (or Olaf V) coins, with the Scan- 
dinavian legend " Cununc " instead of " Rex," are orna- 
mented with shields placed together 




(an emblem which may have been transferred from them 
to the later coins of Harald Haardraade and other Nor- 
wegian kings); as well as with flags of a triangular form, 
with hanging fringes. It is remarkable enough, that 
though such flags are not to be found on contemporary- 
English coins, a piece of the Danish-English kings, Canute 
the Great, has lately been found on which the king's bust 
is represented, and before it a striped triangular flag with 
hanging fringes, of the same form as the flags on the coins 
of the Danish-Norwegian kings in north England. 




The legend on one side is, " Cnutr. Recx;" and on the 
other, " Brihtred on Lun;" which shows that the coin 
was minted in London. 

Thus the coins, in conjunction with the chronicles, 
contribute to prove that flags were important emblems 



54 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 



[Sect. VI. 



with the northern conquerors, which was indeed quite 
natural with a people like the ancient Scandinavians. 
The old Sagas in particular contain frequent accounts of 
the great value that the Northmen set on these flags, 
or, as they were then called, "maerker" (marks). Thus 
the Norwegian chief Harald Haardraade, hefore he became 
king of Norway, and after his return from his many expe- 
ditions into the Greek Empire, sitting and conversing one 
evening (according to the nineteenth chapter of his Saga) 
with King Svend Estridsen of Denmark at the drinking 
table, Svend asked him what precious things he had that 
he set most value on ? He answered, his banner, called 
Landode (or, the land-ravager). Svend then asked what 
qualities this banner had, since he esteemed it so precious 
a thing? Harald replied, " They say that he before whom 
this banner is borne always gains the victory ; and such 
has constantly been the case since I possessed it." 

The class of coins before alluded to as minted by 
Danish-Norwegian sovereigns in England not only presents 
a remarkable view of the importance, as well as appearance, 
of the old Scandinavian flags, or marks, but also serves in 
a high degree to confirm the repeated accounts of the 
English chroniclers, that " the Danes," during their 
conquests in the western lands, often bore a common 
standard, or national flag; a point about which the Danish 
chronicles or Sagas are silent. A coin of Aulaf, or Olaf, 
king of Northumberland, is particularly illustrative of 
this. 




It has the legend, " Anlaf Cununc," and represents a bird 
with extended wings, in which English antiquarians have 



Sect. VI.] FLAGS AND ENSIGNS. 55 

very justly recognised the raven, the chief ensign, or 
emblem, of the ancient Danes. 

From the most ancient times, and almost since the 
period that war was first waged, certain ensigns were 
undoubtedly known and used, around which the warriors 
rallied in battle. This had its origin, indeed, in neces- 
sity, in order that, in the tumult of battle, the combatants 
might always be able to discern where their fellow- warriors 
were; and such a rallying point was particularly of the 
greatest importance when an army was thrown into dis- 
order, or began to fly. To this it may be added, that the 
commander, or the principal leaders, were generally near 
the ensign ; which thus became a signal where the battle 
was usually hottest, and a point to rally round in order to 
protect the chief when in danger. 

But these ensigns, which doubtless were originally 
boughs of trees or other simple things easy to be re- 
cognised at a distance, obtained by degrees a religious 
importance, and must thus have still more excited the 
courage of the combatants. For ensigns those figurative 
images were principally chosen under which men were 
accustomed to represent to themselves their principal 
gods, or to which a peculiar religious faith was attached. 
In the course of time these ensigns were adopted by whole 
tribes as national ones. The eagle, Jupiter's sacred bird, 
served the Romans for a warlike ensign, and animated the 
legions on their distant and universally-celebrated expedi- 
tions. With them, however, it did not flutter in a banner, 
but was cast in metal and fixed on the end of a staff. 
The national ensign used by at least a great part of the 
Gallic tribes in the south of France about the time of the 
birth of Christ, was of a similar kind. According to a few 
still-existing representations of it on monuments, it pre- 
sented the image of a hog, fastened, like the Roman 
eagle, at the end of a staff. Among the Gauls the hog 
was a sacred animal, whence it is afterwards found fre- 
quently represented on the old Gallic coins. 



56 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

Among the German and Scandinavian races, on the 
contrary, we cannot point with certainty to any such 
early national ensigns. These people, as it is well known, 
formed, for several centuries after the birth of Christ, a 
number of petty and independent kingdoms, which were, 
besides, often divided amongst several powerful chiefs. It 
was customary for every chief to have a peculiar sign, 
often an animal, delineated on his shield ; and which was 
likewise represented on the banner that he carried with 
him into battle. This banner, or mark, was generally 
borne before him in the combat by his " marksman ;" and 
at sea it waved on the prow of his ship. It was not, like 
that of the Romans and Gauls, of cast metal, but of 
variegated cloth. 

It was not till the time that the Danes and Norwe- 
gians began to invade the countries of the west, and to 
make great conquests there, and consequently not till 
the ninth century, that we find the oldest traces of the 
Danes, or rather perhaps the Danish-Norwegian Vikings, 
having fought under one Hag; which was not, like the 
earlier ones, that of a single chief, but rather an esta- 
blished national ensign. We must remember that they 
were heathens, making war upon a Christian land, and 
fighting for Odin and Thor against White * Christ. Re- 
gardless of their former contests in the north itself, 
the Vikings were now united on these foreign shores 
by the ties of mutual interest and a common religion ; 
and nothing, therefore, was more natural than that the 
ensign which conducted them in battle should be conse- 
crated to Odin, or, as he was called, the father of victory, 
in whose presence they expected at some time to assemble 
. and enjoy the delights of Valhalla. The eagle had been 
consecrated to Jupiter by the Romans ; among the 
Northmen the raven was Odin's (or, the Father-of-all's) 
sacred bird. One of Odin's names was therefore " Ravne- 
gud"' (raven-god). The ravens Hugin and Munin sat. on 
* An epithet applied by the Northmen to our Saviour. 



Sect. VI.] FLAGS AND ENSIGNS. 57 

his shoulders, and only flew away to bring him intelli- 
gence of what happened in the world. The ancient North- 
men had consequently an especial confidence in the omens 
of Odin's bird. When the Viking Floke Vilgerdeson 
set out from Norway to discover Iceland, he consecrated 
at a sacrifice three ravens, which he wished to take with 
him, to show him the way. He w r as therefore called 
Ravnefloke. The Northmen, also, made prognostications 
from the scream and from the flight of the raven ; and the 
warriors, in particular, regarded it as a good omen if a 
raven followed them as they marched to battle. 

As Jupiter's eagle had been the war sign of the Romans 
so was Odin's raven the chief mark of the Danes in the 
heathen ages. An old chronicler (Emma's Encomiast) 
relates, that in the time of peace no image whatever was 
seen in the flag, or mark, of the Danes ; but in time 
of war there waved a raven in it, from whose movements 
the Danes took auguries of victory or defeat. If it 
fluttered its wings, Odin gave them a sign of conquest : 
but if the wings hung slackly down, victory would surely 
desert them. From the few historical accounts that re- 
main to us of this raven 's-mark we are not, however, 
justified in believing that it was so long or so generally 
adopted among the Danes as the eagle was among the 
Romans. We find it expressly mentioned only during 
the Danish conquests in the British Islands ; yet, remark- 
ably enough, at such different times and under such 
peculiar circumstances, that we may with good reason 
assert that the raven's mark was really a common flag of 
battle and conquest for the Danes and Norwegians. 

It is mentioned for the first time in the year 898, 
consequently nearly a thousand years ago ; that is to say, 
about the time of the banner-coins before described, 
and especially of that coin of Anlaf, or Olaf, on which 
is seen the bird with extended wings. At that time, 
it is said, the Danish chiefs suffered a great defeat in 
South England, in which they lost their war- ensign, or 

d 3 



58 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

banner (Anglo-Saxon, gu'S-fana), which they called " the 
raven " (Anglo-Saxon, rsefen v. hrefu. v. hrsefen). Another 
account adds, that these chiefs were sons of Eegner Lod- 
brog, and that the flag, or mark, was cunningly woven 
by Regner's daughters. The raven borne upon it was 
thought to forbode either victory or defeat. 

This ensign is again spoken of a century later, in 
the time of Canute the Great. It is mentioned in 
the great battle of Clontarf, in Ireland (1014), when 
Sigurd, the Norwegian Jarl of Orkney, bore a raven - 
standard against the Irish. Two years afterwards, in the 
sanguinary battle at Ashingdon in Essex (1016), which 
partly decided Canute's conquest of England, the Danish 
army had begun to give way; when the jarl, Thorkel the 
Tall, shouted to the warriors, as he pointed to the flag, 
that the raven fluttered its wings, and predicted a glo- 
rious victory. The Danes took fresh courage, and victory 
crowned their efforts. The mighty Danish jarl Sivard, or 
Sigurd, surnamed " Digre " (the stout) ( + 1055), who 
ruled the earldom of Northumberland somewhat after 
Canute's time, and after the Danish dominion in England 
had ceased, also bore a raven ensign, which was called 
" Ravenlandeye," or the raven that desolates the land. 
(" Corvus terra terror.") There seems to have been 
many legends among the people, both as to the manner 
in which Sigurd procured this ensign, and as to its super- 
natural power. 

After the time of Canute the Great and Sigurd Digre, 
there is scarcely any coin to be found bearing the image 
of the raven ; but fortunately there is a representation 
of another kind, belonging to the eleventh century, which 
in no slight degree proves that raven-ensigns were actually 
borne by the successors of the Danes and Norwegians 
in the west of Europe until about the year 1100. 

It is known that Scandinavian Vikings, and particularly 
Normans and Danes, conquered the French province 
afterwards called from the Northmen (Normaend) Nor- 



Sect. VI.] 



FLAGS AND ENSIGNS. 



59 



mandy; and that the successors of Rollo, or Rolf (Ralph), 
continued to govern that land as dukes. From Normandy, 
Duke William, surnamed the Conqueror, passed over in 
1066 into England, which he conquered by the battle of 
Hastings. The whole expedition, together with this battle, 
is represented in the old and extremely remarkable piece 
of tapestry, preserved in the cathedral of Bayeux, in 
Normandy, and said to have been worked by William 
the Conqueror's own consort, Matilda; at all events it 
was made shortly after the conquest of England. There 
can, therefore, be no question about the fidelity of the 
figures represented, at all events, as far as regards the- 
Normans. It is here seen that the Norman chiefs, after 
the old Scandinavian fashion, had each his ensign or 
banner of party-coloured cloth cut out into tongues or 
points, and fastened to the pole of a lance. But where 
William is represented on the Bayeux tapestry advancing 
to the battle of Hastings, the chief banner is borne by 
a mounted knight clad in chain armour, who rides before 
another knight, likewise clothed in armour, and having 
on his lance an ensign or flag with five tongues or points, 
and with a cross in it. 




On the chief banner, the only one of that form among 
the many flags in the tapestry, but which in its whole 
shape and pendant fringes bears a striking likeness to the 



60 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

old Danish flags before mentioned, there is seen in the 
middle the figure of a little bird, which may, with the 
greatest probability, be taken for Odin's raven. For it is 
very natural that the Scandinavian Vikings, or Normans, 
who had achieved so many and such famous conquests 
under Odin's raven, should continue to preserve this sign, 
even after they had adopted Christianity ; and that thus 
the Normannic dukes in Normandy should also long bear 
their forefathers' venerable ensign with them as a Palla- 
dium in the combat. 

After the conquest of England by the Normans, how- 
ever, the Norman kings abandoned the old Scandinavian 
raven-mark, and adapted themselves more to the English 
customs. Probably each king had his own mark or flag, 
after the custom of that time, until the national banner 
afterwards received a settled form. But the remembrance 
of the Danish raven by no means became obsolete among 
the English nation. Whilst the raven-flag has almost 
been erased from the memory of the Danish people, the 
remembrance of it still exists freshly in the British 
islands ; and both poets and artists who represent, how- 
ever simply, the ancient combats of the Danes with the 
Anglo-Saxons, the Scotch, and the Irish, seldom neglect 
to make "the enchanted raven" wave in the Danish 
ranks. 

On the often-mentioned Bayeux tapestry is also repre- 
sented the fall of the English king, Harald Godvinsbn, 
at the battle of Hastings. The king's flag-bearer, or 
marksman, who, as well as the king, is on foot, bears 
a flag-staff, on which is fixed a figure, probably of cloth, 
cut in the resemblance of a dragon, which was the royal 
mark of the Anglo-Saxon king. Close before him lies a 
fallen knight, by whose side is seen a lance wdth the point 
downwards, and on which hangs a similar dragon. 




%^ -J> 



This fallen knight is without doubt the king. From the 
form of his flag, or mark, we may conclude that the Danes' 
• raven-mark probably consisted at times of the figure of a 
raven fixed to a shaft, and cut out or sewed in a similar 
manner. 

What colours were used for the raven-mark can now 
hardly be decided. The bird, or raven, on William the 
Conqueror's war-flag appears to have been of a blue- 
black on a pale yellow, or light, ground. This colour 
in the tapestry may, perhaps, have been accidental ; and 
the account of an English chronicler would lead us to 
suppose that the ground of the Danish flags, or marks, 
was, at least in time of peace, white. But the colours 
were certainly different at different times. There can be 
no doubt that the ground was often red ; for, from the 
most ancient times, red was a very favourite colour in the 
north, especially in time of war. The old inhabitants of 
the north, when they came as friends, used to show a white 
shield, but when they appeared as enemies it was red ; 
then " they raised the war-shield." In Norway red seems 
to have been the national colour from an early period; 



62 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VI. 

and it was even ordered in Gulething's laws, that every 
man who possessed six silver marks* should have a red 
shield. Something similar was probably the case in Den- 
mark. An old legend preserved by the Scotch historians 
relates that, in a battle in Scotland about eight hundred 
years ago, the Danes wore red and white tunics. That red 
and white appear so prominently on the Danish national 
colours ever since the thirteenth century is certainly 
owing to an ancient predilection among the people for 
these colours. It is perhaps, therefore, most probable 
that the banners, or marks, of the ancient Danes were, in 
time of peace, of a light colour, but in war time of a blood 
colour, with a black raven on the red ground. 

In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the raven, 
the Danebrog of heathenism, waved victoriously in the 
western lands. It was with Canute the Great at Ashing- 
don, with the Norman William at Hastings, and was thus 
present at two conquests of England. But the battle of 
Hastings was the last important battle that the raven 
won. Heathen Scandinavia had exhausted its strength by • 
numerous and far-extended conquests. Christianity, and 
with it a new and a higher civilization, advanced with a 
power not to be checked even among the ancient followers 
of Odin. The raven, Odin's mark, to which the heathen 
Danes had attached themselves with all the strength of 
religious faith, no longer inspired them as before when 
the warriors had lost the hope of the joys of Valhalla. 
If they now fought, it was mostly against heathens who 
would not bow before that cross on which Christ bled and 
suffered for the sins of mankind. In order to inspire the 
combatants, it was necessary that the banner which they 
followed should be an expression of the spirit which stirred 
among the people, of that living hope which animated 
them respecting the manner of their existence in another 
world. The raven, the symbol of heathenism, paled by 
degrees, as antiquated and meaningless, and at last quite 
gave place to the symbol of Christianity, the holy cross. 
* A mark was half a pound of silver. 



Sect. VI.] FLAGS AND ENSIGNS. 68 

The same representations on ancient coins and tapestry, 
which exhibit the raven, and the old flags, also show the 
sign of the cross. The flag on Olaf's and Kegnald's coins 
(p. 53) has a figure in the middle resembling the cross. 
This is still more distinct on the Bayeux tapestry, where 
William's chief banner is borne (p. 59), for immediately 
after the raven follows a flag with the cross. This last, 
moreover, certainly represents the identical consecrated 
banner with the figure of a cross, which the Pope sent to 
William on the occasion of his expedition against England. 

The sign of the cross must by degrees have naturally 
superseded the raven, not only among the descendants of 
the Danes and Norwegians in England, but also, though 
perhaps somewhat later, in the north itself. If we may 
not assume that the present " Danebrog," with its white, 
cross on a red ground, became the Danish national flag 
immediately after the introduction of Christianity, it is 
at least certain that the Danish kings, in the first two 
centuries after that event, bore flags with crosses as their 
personal banners, or marks; and particularly in the twelfth 
century, when the crusades against the heathen Wends 
began. An old Saga, or legend, relates, that during one 
of the crusades of King Waldemar the Victorious in 
Livonia, in 1219, the " Danebrog" fell from heaven 
among the Danish army. This much, however, is certain 
— -that it is not till after these crusades that the " Dane- 
brog" appears as the established national flag of the 
Danes ; and ever since that time, for more than six 
centuries, it has continued to wave unchanged in the 
Danish fleets and armies. It is remarkable that, as the 
flag of the fleet, and of all fortified places, and as the 
royal flag, it is split ; and it can scarcely be doubted that 
this form must have originated from the fringes and 
tongues, or points, with which the old Danish and Scandi- 
navian flags were ornamented in the tenth and eleventh 
centuries. The Scandinavian people is the only one which 
from remote antiquity has uninterruptedly borne this split 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 



fSect. VI. 



flag ; and it is possible that Sweden, as well as Norway, 
obtained theirs, which, is of comparative!} 7 late origin, by 



imitating the old Danebrog. 




Other European countries also derived from the cru- 
sades flags with crosses as their national banners ; as, for 
instance, England the St. George's banner, which was 
white with a red cross ; and Scotland a blue flag 
divided by a white St. Andrew's cross. About the same 
time the different kingdoms began to adopt a fixed 
national coat of arms. Thus Denmark assumed that 
still in use, — three blue leopards, or lions, on a golden 
shield, strewed with red hearts; which was originally the 
family arms of the royal house. It has, however, under- 
gone a few slight changes. With regard to this subject, it 
is remarkable that three leopards were also borne by the 
Norman dukes, who were of Norwegian descent, and who, 
after the conquest, introduced the leopards, or lions, into 
the arms of England. Generally the lion was not, nor is 
indeed at present, found on coats of arms in England and 
France, whereas it appears very frequently in those of the 



Sect. VII] NAMES OF PLACES. 65 

north. Sweden has, besides others, the Gothic lion ; the 
Norwegian national coat of arms is a lion with a halberd ; 
and Denmark has, besides the proper national arms, 
the Cymbric lion, and the two Sleswick lions. But 
the lion is so peculiarly Scandinavian that it does not 
even cross the Eider; Holstein, which is German, has an 
entirely different coat of arms — a nettle-leaf. There is 
also this similarity between the Danish and English lions, 
that they are represented standing, whilst those on the 
other national arms are depicted springing. Would it, 
therefore, be quite groundless to trace, even in the armorial 
bearings of England, one of the many proofs of the in- 
fluence which the Northmen, and the Scandinavian elements, 
still continued to exert there at the time when the national 
arms were adopted, and when the foundations of an 
entirely new and superior social system had already been 
laid ? 



Section VII. 

Danish- Norwegian Names of Places. 

On the extremity of the tongue of land which borders on 
the north the entrance of the Humber, there formerly 
stood a castle called Ravnsbre (raven's point — in old Scan- 
dinavian, Hrafnseyri), and afterwards Ravnsere. Ore is, 
as is well known, the old Scandinavian name for the sandy 
point of a promontory. Ravn (or Raven) may possibly 
have been either the name of the man who first conquered 
the surrounding district and built the castle ; or, what is 
certainly far more probable, the Northmen, on erecting 
this important castle on one of their first landing places 
on the greatest river in north England, named it after the 
bird sacred to Odin, which fluttered in their banner, and 
prognosticated to them victory in the fight. In that case 
it was a singular coincidence that Harald Haardraade's son 
Olaf should, after the battle of Stamford Bridge, have em- 



66 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VII. 

barked at Ravnsore for the Orkneys and Norway with the 
feeble remnant of the Norwegian army. The very place 
which had before so often seen multitudes of Northmen, 
intoxicated with victory, land with Odin's raven-flag, now 
beheld the flight-like departure of their successors, after 
they had combated in vain under that celebrated banner 
"Landode" (the land-ravager), which had accompanied 
Harald Haardraade in his expeditions to the East, against 
the Saracens and other enemies of Christianity. It was 
one of the many proofs that " White Christ" was not yet 
for the Northmen, at least in battle, what Odin had been 
previously. 

It is, however, at least certain that the name " Raven- 
spurn" (Ravnsore) is derived from the Scandinavian con- 
querors. An Icelandic Saga, written a hundred and fifty 
years after the conquest of England by the Normans, or 
after the battle of Hastings (1066), says that " Northum- 
berland was mostly colonized by Northmen; for after 
Lodbrog's sons, who conquered the country, had again lost it, 
the Danes and Norwegians often harried it; and there 
are still many places to be found in the district that 
have names taken from the Scandinavian tongue, such as 
Grimsby, Hauksfliot, and numerous others." 

Old English chroniclers also state that many towns in 
England had new names given to them by the Northmen ; 
for instance Streaneshalch came to be called Whitby, 
and Northweorthig was named in the Danish language 
" Deoraby." 

A surer and more decisive proof than all written historical 
accounts of the Danish-Norwegian settlements and diffusion 
in the midland and northern districts of England is, that 
the above-named places, namely, Grimsby (" the town of 
Grim "), Whitby (Hvidby, " the White town "), and Deoraby 
Dyreby ("town of deer"), contracted to Derby, are to be 
found to this day in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Derby- 
shire ; and also that in these old Danish districts there is, 
moreover, a very considerable number of towns with names 



Sect. VII.] NAMES OF PLACES. 67 

of just as undoubted Danish origin. A close inspection 
of even a common map of England will soon show that 
there are not a few names of places in the north of Eng- 
land, whose terminations and entire form are of quite a 
different kind from those of places in the south. 

The greater number of names of places in the south of 

England end in ton, ham, bury, or 

borough, forth or ford, worth, &c. These, 

which are of Anglo-Saxon origin, and which also serve 
still further to prove the preponderating influence of the 
Anglo-Saxons in that part, are, it is true, also spread 
over the whole of the north of England. But, even in 
the districts about the Thames (in Kent, Essex, Suffolk, 
and Norfolk) they already begin to be mixed with previously 

unknown names ending in by (Old Northern, byr, 

first a single farm, afterwards a town in general), thorpe 

^old Northern ]2orp, a collection of houses separated from 

some principal estate, a village), thwaite, in the old 

Scandinavian language jpveit, tved, an isolated piece of 

land, naes, a promontory, and ey, or 6e, an isle ; 

as in Kirby, or Kirkby, Risby, Upthorpe and others. As 
we approach from the south the districts west of the Wash, 
such as Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, the number 
of such names constantly increases, and we find, among 
others, x\shby, Rugby, and Naseby. As we proceed farther 
north, we find still more numerous names of towns 
and villages having in like manner new terminations ; 

such as, with (i.e. forest), toft, beck, tarn 

(Scandinavian, tjorn, or tjarn, a small lake, water), dale, 

fell (rocky mountain), force (waterfall), haugh, 

or, how (Scand., haugr, a hill), garth (Scand., garftr, 

a large farm); together with many others. The inha- 
bitants of the north will at once acknowledge these endings 
to be pure Norwegian or Danish ; which is, moreover, 
placed beyond all doubt by the compound words in which 
they appear. 

It is not of course very easy to point out the meaning of 



68 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. TIL 

every name of a place that has a Danish or Norwegian 
termination; the original form having been partly cor- 
rupted by later differences of pronunciation, and partly 
changed, by the ancient Scandinavians having often merely 
added a Scandinavian ending to the older names, or at 
most re-modelled them into forms that had a home-like 
sound to their ears. Still there are names enough of 
places whose signification is quite clear. To instance 
some derived from the situation or nature of the place : 
Eastby (Dan., Ostby ; Eng., the eastern village), Westerby 
(Eng., the western village), Mickleby (Dan., Magleby; 
Eng., the large village), Somerby, Markby (Eng., the field 
village), Newby (Dan., Nyby ; Eng., the new village), CJp- 
perby (Dan., Overby ; Eng., the upper village), Netherby 
(the lower village), Langtoft (the long field), Kirkland 
(church-land), Stainsby (the stone village), Haidenby (Dan., 
Hedeby; Eng., the heath village), Raithby (Dan., Kodby, 
from rydde, to clear away), Dalby (village in the dale), 
Seawby and Scausby (village in the wood), Scow, Askwith 
(Dan., Askved, or Askeskov, i.e. Ashwood), Storwith (Dan., 
Storved, orStorskov; Eng., the large wood), Lund (Danish 
for grove), Risby (the beech village), Thornby (the thorn 
village), Birkby (Dan., Birk ; Eng., the birch village), Ings 
(Dan., Enge ; Eng. meadow), Brackenthwaite (Bregentved, 
from Brackens), Northorpe (Dan., Norup ; Eng., north 
village), Millthrop (Dan., Moldrup; Eng. mill-village), 
Staindrop (Dan., Stenderup; Eng., stone village), Lin- 
thorpe (Dan., Lindrup; Eng., lime-tree village), Stonegarth 
Dan., Steengaard ; Eng., stone farm), Dalegarth (Dan., 
Dalsgaard; Eng. valley farm), Fieldgarth (Z)<m.,Fjeldgaard; 
Eng., rocky farm), with others. A village on the river 
Eden in Cumberland is called Longwathby (from a long ford, 
or wading place ; Danish, at vade) ; and north and south of 
the Humber, at a spot where there is a ferry over the river 
(Dan., F serge), lie north and south Ferriby! Almost all 
these names, to which a great number of similar ones might 
be added, answer to names of places still in use in Den- 



Sect. VII.] NAMES OF PLACES. 69 

mark, only with this difference, that thwaite has there 
passed into tvede, or tved, and thorpe into trup, drup, or rup. 

The following examples may be cited of Danish-Nor- 
wegian names of places in England, called after animals : 
Codale (Cowdale), Swinedale, Swinethorpe, Hestholm (Eng., 
Horse-holm), Calthorpe, and Hareby. 

Names of places containing personal names are, how- 
ever, beyond comparison far more numerous, and were 
probably taken from the first Scandinavian conquerors ; 
as, for instance, Eollesby (Rolfsby), Ormsby (Gormsby), 
Ormskirk, Grimsdale, Grimsthorpe, Haconby, Gunnerby, 
Aslackby, Swaiuby, Swainsthorpe, Ingersby, Thirkelsby, 
Asserby, Johnby, Brandsby, Ingoldasthorpe, Osgodby, 
Thoresby, and several others. 

Among this species of names of places are found such 
as Tursdale, Baldersby, Fraisthorpe, and Ullersthorpe. 
Now it is certainly probable that these were only derived 
from men named Thor, Balder, Freyer, and Uller, or 
Oiler; yet we cannot avoid thinking of the old gods 
who bore these names, particularly as it was a common 
custom among the ancient Scandinavians to name towns 
and estates after them. In England also are found 
Asgardby, Aysgarth (or Asgaard, in Yorkshire), as well 
Wydale and Wigthorpe, or Wythorpe ; which two names 
have undoubtedly the same origin as the old sacrificial and 
assize town Viborg, in Jutland (from Vebjbrg, or the holy 
mountains) ; namely, from ve, a sacred place. Even the 
name of one of the most important sacrificial places in the 
Scandinavian north, is to be found in Yorkshire, in Upsal 
(from Upsalir, the high halls). The names of places in Eng- 
land which have preserved traces of the Danes after they 
had become Christians, may all the more assure us that 
we are not mistaken in regarding the names just men- 
tioned as remarkable remains of the short period of their 
domination when heathens. The names of Bishopsthorpe 
(Bispetorp), Nunthorpe (Nonnetorp), Kirkby, Crosby, and 
Crossthwaite, sufficiently prove that Christian had succeeded 



70 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VII. 

to sacrificial priests, and that church and cross were now 
erected where heathen altars and temples had formerly stood. 

The name of the village of Thingwall * in Cheshire affords 
a remarkable memorial of the assizes, or Tiling, which the 
Northmen generally held in conjunction with their sacri- 
fices to the gods ; it lies, surrounded with several other 
villages with Scandinavian names, on the small tongue of 
land that projects between the mouths of the rivers Dee 
and Mersey. At that time they generally chose for the 
holding of the thing, or assizes, a place in some degree 
safe from surprise. The chief ancient thing place for 
Iceland was called like this Thingwall, namely Thingvalla 
(originally " j}ingvollr," " jtfngvellir," or the thing-fields). 

The before-mentioned names Bishopsthorpe and Nun- 
thorpe apply to estates that belonged to the church ; the 
following ones, viz., Coningsby, Coneysthorpe, Coneysby, 
Kingthorpe, and Kingsby, denote property belonging to 
the kings, or destined for their maintenance. Some towns 
are named after the trade or business of the original in- 
habitants as Smisby (Smithby) Weaverthorpe, and Copman 
thorpe (Kjobmandsthorpe, i.e., merchants-thorpe) ; others 
point to the descent of the inhabitants, such as Romanby, 
Saxby, Flemingsby, Frankby, Frisby and Fristhorpe (but 
this possibly came from "Freyr"), Scotby, Scotsthorpe, 
Ireby, Normanby, Danby or Denby, and Danesdale. 

It also deserves to be mentioned that many of these 
names of places have by degrees become family ones, which 
are constantly heard in England ; for instance, Thoresby, 
Ashby, Crosby (whence again Ashby and Crosby Streets in 
London), Thorpe, Sibthorpe, Willoughby, Scoresby, Derby, 
Selby, Wiiberforce, &c. 

In order, lastly, to convey an idea of the abundance of 
Scandinavian, or Danish-Norwegian, names of places, 
which occur in the midland and northern districts of 
England, a tabular view of those most frequently met 
with is here subjoined from the English maps. This list, 
* Wall, Dan., Yold, a bank or rampart. 



Sect. VII.] 



NAMES OF PLACES. 



71 



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72 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VII. 

which is principally drawn up for the use of those readers 
who have not a comprehensive map of England at 
hand, will, with all its deficiencies, clearly and incontest- 
ably prove the correctness of the historical accounts, 
which state that the new population of Danes and Norwe- 
gians that immigrated into England during the Danish 
expeditions, settled almost exclusively in the districts to 
the north and east of Watlinga-Strset, and there chiefly to 
the west and north of the Wash. Norfolk, Northampton- 
shire, and Lancashire, have each only about fifty names of 
places of Scandinavian origin; Leicestershire has about 
ninety ; Lincolnshire alone, nearly three hundred ; York- 
shire above four hundred; Westmoreland and Cumber- 
land each about one hundred and fifty. The colonization 
has clearly been greatest near the coasts, and along the 
rivers ; it had its central point in Lincolnshire (the North- 
men's " Lindisey "), and in the ancient Northumberland, or 
land north of the river Humber. Yet it was not much 
extended in Durham and the present Northumberland, 
each of which contains only a little more than a score of 
Scandinavian names. 

The same table still further shows that the names end- 
ing in by, thorpe, toft, beck, naes, and ey, appear chiefly 
in the flat midland counties of England ; whereas, farther 
towards the north, in the more mountainous districts, 
these terminations mostly give place to those in thwaite, 
and more particularly to those in dale, force, tarn, fell, 
and haugh. This difference, however, is scarcely founded 
on the natural character of the country alone ; it may 
also have arisen from the different descent of the in- 
habitants. For although in ancient times Danish and 
Norwegian were one language, with unimportant varia- 
tions, so that it would scarcely be possible to decide with 
certainty in every single case whether the name of a place 
be derived from the Danes or from the Norwegians ; yet it 
may reasonably be supposed that part at least of the last- 
mentioned names are Norwegian; namely, those ending 



Sect. VII.] NAMES OF PLACES. 73 

in dale (as Kirk-dale, Lang-dale, Wast-dale, Bishops- 



dale) ; in force (as Aysgarth-force in Yorkshire, High- 
force, and Low-force, in the river Tees, and in the stream 

called " Seamer Water ") ; in fell (old Norwegian, fjall ; 

Mickle-fell, Cam-fell, Kirk-fell, Middle-fell, Cross-fell) ; in 

tarn (Old Nor., tjorn, or tjarn, a small lake); and in 

haugh(as in Northumberland, Red-haugh,»Kirk-haugh, 

Green-haugh, Windy-haugh). Exactly similar names are 
met with to this day in the mountains of Norway ; whilst they 
are less common, or altogether wanting, in the flat country 
of Denmark. That Norwegians also immigrated into 
England, even in considerable numbers, both history and 
the frequently occurring name of Normanby in the north 
of England, clearly show ; but they appear to have betaken 
themselves chiefly to the most northern and mountainous 
districts, which not only lay nearest to them, but which in 
character most resembled their own country. In this re- 
spect it deserves to be noticed, that places whose names 
end in tarn, and are consequently pure Norwegian, are 
found only in the most northern counties ; and that those 
in haugh — although there are names of places in Denmark 
ending in hoi (hill) — must also, from the form, be Nor- 
wegian. They are found exclusively in the present Northum- 
berland, and within the Scotch border. 

We may, however, venture to set down the greater part 
of Scandinavian names of places in England as Danish. 
The terminations in thwaite and thorpe, indeed, are to 
be met with in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, as well as 
in the Saxon and Frisian districts of North Germany ; yet 
as the corresponding English names are for the most part 
composed of pure Scandinavian or Danish words, and as 
they seldom appear either in the tracts conquered by the 
Norwegians in Scotland and Ireland, or in the southern 
and south-western, originally Anglo-Saxon, districts of Eng- 
land, but keep strictly within the same boundaries as the 
rest of the Danish names of places, and particularly of 

E 



74 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VII. 

those ill by (Danish for town or village), these are valid 
reasons for regarding them in general as Danish. 

The names of places in England ending in by are only 
to he found in the districts selected by the Danes for con- 
quest or colonization. With the exception of a single 
Kirby, or Kirkby, in Kent, not far from London, they are 
nowhere to be found to the south of Watlinga-strset (for 
Tenby, formerly Tenbigh, in Pembrokeshire, is from a 
different derivation) ; whilst towards the north, they cease 
in the most north-eastern county of England, the present 
Northumberland ; in the south-westernmost part of Scot- 
land (Locherby in Dumfries, Sorby in Wigtonshire) ; and 
in the Isle of Man (Sulby, Jurby, Dalby). If we except 
Duncansby in Caithness, and Oreby in the Isle of Lewis, 
as well as some few villages in Orkney and the Shetland 
Isles, they do not appear among the many pure Norwegian 
names of places in the north and west of Scotland, and in 
Ireland ; which, as will be explained in its proper place, 
have generally quite a different character from the Scan- 
dinavian (chiefly Danish) names of places in England. It 
can hardly be said that this was solely owing to the na- 
tural character of the country in England being more 
favourable for the building of villages than in those districts 
in Scotland and Ireland which were occupied by the 
Northmen : first, because the Norwegians seem to have 
dwelt closely together in many places there, doubtless in 
order to resist the attacks of the natives ; secondly, be- 
cause the land there, though often separated by nature into 
many districts, as for instance in Caithness and the 
Orkneys, by no means prevented them from assembling 
together in villages ; and lastly, because by originally 
denoted only a single estate or farm. In Norway, the 
Faroe Isles, and Iceland, many names of places are to be 
found, which indicate the existence both of single farm- 
houses and collections of them, or villages ; but they have 
this peculiarity, that they generally end in beer or bo, far 



Sect. VII.] NAMES OF PLACES. 75 

more rarely in byr or by ; whilst, on the contrary, this last 
form is essentially Danish. Names of places ending in 
by are spread over the peninsula of Jutland quite down to 
Danevirke and the Eyder ; are found in great numbers in 
the southern boundary of South Jutland, or Sleswick ; as 
well as in the islands and old Danish countries of Skaane, 
or Scania, Halland, and Bleking; whence they extend them- 
selves over a great part of Sweden, and far into Finland. 
From the most ancient times down to the present, this 
difference between the Norwegian form beer, and the 
Danish byr or by, seems on the whole to have clearly 
prevailed ; and thus that, as early as the eleventh century, 
the English towns and villages are written in William the 
Conqueror's " Domesday-book," with the Danish ending 
by or hi, and not with the Norwegian form beer or bo, is 
certainly no slight corroboration of their assumed Danish 
origin. Besides, as by is not found in the names of places 
south of the Eyder, in Holstein or North Germany, and 
as it is wholly unknown in the Saxon or German lan- 
guages, there is consequently so much the greater pro- 
bability that in England it was derived from the Danes. 

For the same reasons, towns whose names end in by are 
most numerous in the counties situated on the coast 
opposite Jutland ; viz., in Leicestershire, 66 ; Lincolnshire, 
212; and the North Biding of Yorkshire, 100. In the 
two other Bidings, there are altogether about 70 names of 
places ending in by; in Cumberland, 43; and in West- 
moreland, 20. For the rest, this termination occurs so 
frequently throughout the old Danish part of England, that, 
of 1370 Scandinavian names of places, above 600 (as the 
tabular view given at page 71 shows) end in by, whilst no 
other names exceed 280 ; and even this number is reached 
only by the ending thorpe, which also is certainly pure 
Danish ; whilst the most numerous after thorpe fall down to 
140. This remarkable preponderance of Danish endings 
in by, will of itself sufficiently prove the important and 

e 2 



76 THE DANES- IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VII. 

wide-extended influence of the Danes in the midland and 
northern counties of England. 

The not inconsiderable number (1370) of Scandinavian 
names of places collected together in the preceding tabular 
view, could be much increased if we were to include all 
the Scandinavian appellations used by the common people 
in many parts of the north of England. A hill, or small 
mountain, is there called hoe or how (Hoi in Jutland: 
How or Hyv) ; a mountain ridge, rigg ; a ford, wath ; 
a spring, kell; a holm or small island, holm ; a farm (Dan., 
Gaard), garth, &c, &c. We might thus, on a very low cal- 
culation, compute in round numbers the clearly recognisable 
Scandinavian names of places in England at one thousand 
five hundred. 

That they should have been preserved in such num- 
bers for more than eight centuries after the fall of the 
Danish dominion in England, and that they should have 
retained, as it has been shown, the original Scandinavian 
forms, and that often in a highly striking degree, completely 
disproves the opinion that the old Danish-Norwegian in- 
habitants of the country north of Watlinga-Straet were 
supplanted or expelled after the cessation of the Danish 
dominion (1042), first by the Anglo-Saxons, and after- 
wards by the Normans from Normandy; for if such had been 
the case, the names of places would naturally have become 
altogether changed and impossible to recognise. As the 
matter stands it is sufficiently proved that Danes as well as 
Norwegians must have continued to reside in great num- 
bers in the districts previously conquered by them, and 
particularly in the north; and consequently that a very 
considerable part of the present population in the midland 
and northern counties of England may with certainty trace 
their origin to the Northmen, and especially to the Danes. 



Sect. VIII.] MIXTUKE OF RACES. 77 

Section VIII. 

Resemblance of the People to the Danes and Norwegians. — Proper 
Names. — Popular Language. — Songs and Legends. 

The present English people is certainly composed, as we 
have seen, of the most heterogeneous elements. The 
Englishman reckons among his ancestors Britons, Romans, 
Anglo-Saxons, and Northmen, especially Danes and 
Normans. All these people, who successively reigned over 
England for centuries, must naturally have left numerous 
descendants behind them. But as in ancient times it was 
a combat of life and death for dominion, the conquered 
and their posterity could not immediately amalgamate 
with the conquerors. Long after the Norman conquest 
(1066) the Britons, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, were 
still hostilely opposed to each other. These disputes were 
brought to a close during the middle ages; prejudices 
vanished; mixed marriages became more frequent; the 
different races acquired common interests; and at last, 
with the exception of those Britons who kept themselves 
aloof in Wales, passed into one great nation. From this 
time it was no longer usual in marriages to regard family 
descent ; it was only some of the richer sort, and higher 
lineage, who considered it an honour to preserve the 
original blood as pure as possible. There are families 
still to be found in England who pretend that they de- 
scend in a direct line from Saxon or Norman ancestors, 
and who assert that Saxon or Norman features have been 
transmitted to them. But even these families have in the 
course of time been considerably mixed with races of an 
entirely different extraction ; nay, even the Britons in 
Wales have not been able to prevent some of the hated 
English blood from gradually supplying and deteriorating 
that which runs in their own veins. Moreover, if we con- 
sider what an immense number of Irishmen, Frenchmen, 
Germans, Jews, and others, have, particularly during later 
centuries, immigrated into England, where they have set- 



78 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

tied, and by degrees married natives ; and, lastly, if we 
remember that most foreigners have settled on the east 
coast, or in the midland and north-eastern districts ; we 
might almost deem it impossible to point out from the 
features and bodily frame of the inhabitants of these dis- 
tricts, any preponderating degree of descent from Saxons, 
Danes, or any one race of people that colonized England 
in times so long past. In this respect we can of course 
scarcely think of comparing districts of small extent, such 
as two neighbouring parishes, or two adjoining counties 
on the east coast of England. Nevertheless, if by taking 
a survey of such extensive districts as north and south 
England, we were able to discover a tolerably decided 
difference in the general appearance of the inhabitants, 
this would be a weighty corroboration of the assertions of 
history, and of the proof derived from names, that these 
districts were originally peopled by inhabitants of entirely 
different descent. 

The Englishman of London, and the rest of southern 
England, does not in general betray in his exterior any 
perceptible resemblance to the Danes and Norwegians. 
On the contrary, he decidedly differs from them. The 
black hair, the dark eye, the fine hooked nose, and the 
long oval countenance, remind one either of relationship 
with the Eomans, whose chief seat in England was in the 
south, or rather, perhaps, of a strong compound between 
the ancient Britons and the Anglo-Saxon and Norman 
races, which afterwards immigrated into England. Many 
of the Britons seem to have been dark -haired ; for among 
their descendants in Wales, as well as among their near 
kinsmen, the Highland Scots and the Irish, there are 
still frequently found — and particularly in remote dis- 
tricts, as, for instance, in the Hebrides — dark-haired and 
generally small people, having on the whole dark com- 
plexions. It was, too, in the south and south-west of 
England that the greatest mixture took place between the 
original British tribes and those that afterwards came over. 



Sect. VIII.] NATIONAL FEATURES. 79 

But as we proceed from the southern towards the middle 
and northern parts of England, we find that by de- 
grees an entirely different physiognomy, which before we 
only got a glimpse of now and then, and which could 
scarcely be remarked in the confusion of people in Lon- 
don, becomes more and more the prevailing one. The 
farther one proceeds towards Northumberland, the more 
distinct does it become. The form of the face is broader, 
the cheek bones project a little, the nose is somewhat 
natter, and at times turned a little upwards, the eyes 
and hair are of a lighter colour, and even deep red hair 
is far from being uncommon. The people are not very 
tall in stature, but usually more compact and strongly 
built than their countrymen towards the south. The 
Englishman himself seems to acknowledge that a difference 
is to be found in the appearance of the inhabitants of the 
northern and southern counties ; at least one constantly 
hears in England, when red-haired compact-built men with 
broad faces are spoken of; " They must certainly be from 
Yorkshire : " a sort of admission that light hair, and the 
broad peculiar form of the face, belong mostly to the 
north - of - England people. On the other hand, little 
importance must be attached to the circumstance that 
Englishmen generally attribute the red hair to the immi- 
gration of the Danes ; for though it is true that many 
Danes, and particularly many Norwegians, were red haired, 
yet some tribes of the original Celtic inhabitants of the 
British Isles also had red hair ; and the same feature may 
likewise be partly ascribed to the Saxons. 

In the midland, and especially in the northern part of 
England, I saw every moment, and particularly in the rural 
districts, faces exactly resembling those at home. Had I 
met the same persons in Denmark or Norway, it would 
never have entered my mind that they were foreigners. 
Now and then I also met with some whose taller growth 
and sharper features reminded me of the inhabitants of 
South Jutland, or Sleswick, and particularly of Angeln ; 



80 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

districts of Denmark which first sent colonists to England. 
It is not easy to describe peculiarities which can be appre- 
ciated in all their details only by the eye ; nor dare I im- 
plicitly conclude that in the above-named cases I have 
really met with persons descended in a direct line from the 
old Northmen. I adduce it only as a striking fact, which 
will not escape the attention of at least any observant Scan- 
dinavian traveller, that the inhabitants of the north of 
England bear, on the whole, more than those of any other 
part of that country, an unmistakeable personal resem- 
blance to the Danes and Norwegians. 

Old Scandinavian national names, such as Thorkil, Erik, 
Haldan, Harald, Else, and several others, were formerly, 
at least, not unfrequently used in these districts. Sur- 
names, such as Adamson, Jackson, Johnson, Nelson 
(Nielson), Thomson, Stevenson, Swainson, and others, all of 
which have endings in son or sen, which never appear in 
Saxon names, still frequently occur. The ending son 
or sen (a son) is quite peculiar to the countries of Scan- 
dinavia, whence it was brought over to England by the 
Scandinavian colonists. It is not, however, confined to 
the north of England, but is spread over all the British 
Islands where the Northmen settled ; for instance, in 
Scotland we find Anderson, Matheson, &c. It is very 
remarkable that the name of Johnson, which, as is well 
known, is one of the commonest in England, is also, 
perhaps, in the selfsame form, that which most frequently 
occurs in Iceland. 

The still existing popular dialect affords an excellent 
proof that the resemblance of the inhabitants of the 
northern counties of England to the Danes and Norwe- 
gians is not confined to a, perhaps accidental, personal 
likeness. The pure English language itself includes, both 
with regard to its vocabulary and inflexions, many Scan- 
dinavian elements, the result of the Danish immigration. 
But, in the north of England, many words and phrases are 
preserved in the popular language, which are neither found 



Sect. VIII.] NORTH ENGLISH DIALECT. 81 

nor understood in other parts, although they sound quite 
familiar to every Northman. These original Scandinavian 
terms are not only applied, as I have before said, to water- 
• falls, mountains, rivulets, fords, and islands, but are also 
in common use in daily life ; as, for instance, late (Dan., 
lede ; Eng., to seek), lite (Dan., lide; Eng., to rely), helle 
(Dan., helde; Eng., to pour out), hit (Dan., hitte ; Eng., 
to find), clip (Z)«n.,klippe ; Eng., to cut), forelders (Dan., 
Forseldre, or Forfaedre ; Eng., ancestors, forefathers), up- 
daals (Dan., opdals ; Eng., up the valley), kirk-folk (Dan., 
Kirkefolk ; Eng., people going to church), kirk-garth (Dan., 
Kirke-gaard ; Eng., churchyard), with many others. 

These originally Scandinavian words are now chiefly 
found in the north-west of England, among the remote 
mountains of Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and 
Lancashire, where they have withstood the changes of 
time. On entering a house there one will find the house- 
wife sitting with her rock (Dan., Kok ; Eng., a distaff) and 
spoele (Dan., Spole ; Eng., spool, a small wheel on the 
spindle) ; or else she has set both her rock and her gam- 
windle (Dan., Garnvinde; Eng., reel or yarn-winder) aside, 
whilst standing by her hack-bword (Dan., Bagebord; Eng., 
baking-board) she is about to knead dough (Dan., Deig), 
in order to make the oaten bread commonly used in these 
parts, at times, also, barley-bread ; for clap-bread (Dan. 
Klappebrod, or thin cakes beaten out with the hand) she 
lays the dough on the clap-board (Dan., Klappebord). One 
will also find the bord-claith spread (Da?i., Bordklaede ; Eng., 
table-cloth) ; the people of the house then sit on the bank 
or link (Dan., Baenk ; Eng., bench), and eat Aandorn 
(Eng., afternoon's repast), or, as it is called in Jutland and 
Fiinen, Onden (dinner). The chimney, lower, stands in 
the room ; which name may perhaps be connected with the 
Scandinavian lyre (Icelandic, ljori); viz., the smoke-hole 
in the roof or thatch (thack), out of which in olden times, 
before houses had regular chimneys and " lofts " (Dan., Loft; 
Eng., roof, an upper room), the smoke (reek or reik, Dan., 

e 3 



#2 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

Rog) left the dark {mirk or murk, Dan., mork) room. 
Within is the bower or boor {Eng., bed-chamber), in Danish, 
Buur; as, for instance, in the old Danish word Jomfrubuur 
(the maiden's chamber), and in the modern word Fadebuur 
(the pantry). 

Outside, in the garth, or yard {Dan., Gaard), stands the 
roomy lathe, or bam {Dan., Lade), which directly shows 
how fruitful the soil is that belongs to the garth {Dan., 
Gaard; Eng., a manor, farm). The shepherd or herdsman, 
whose noivth (Dan., Nod; Eng., neat cattle) are restless in 
the boose (Dan., Baas; Eng., stall) and crib (Dan., Krybbe ; 
Eng., manger), is about to cleanse the stable, and with a 
greype, or gripe (Dan., Moggreve; Eng., dung-fork), bears 
out the muck (Dan., Mog; Eng., dung) to the midding 
(Dan., Modding; Eng., dunghill). If we accompany him 
to the fields he tells us in a lively tone about the many 
thr eaves of corn (Dan., Traver, bundles of twenty or thirty 
sheaves), particularly of big (Dan., Byg; Eng. barley) that 
have been got from the poor ling (Dan., Lyng; Eng., 
fern) which covers the sides of the haughs or haws (Dan., 
Hoie; Eng., hills) ; of all the slaa-torns (Dan., Slaatjorn; 
Eng., sloes), lins (Dan., Lindetraeer; Eng., linden trees), 
roan trees (Dan., Ronnetrser; Eng., Scotch rowan trees), and 
allars (Dan., Elletraeer; Eng., alders), that grow in yonder 
little shaw (Dan., Skov; Eng., wood), or in that lawnd 
(Dan., Lund ; Eng., grove), which is likewise full of hind- 
berries (Dan., Hindbger; Eng., raspberries), and which is 
resorted to by many gowks (Dan., Gjoge; Eng., cuckoos). 
A field farther on, which in its time was acquired by mack- 
shift (Dan., Mageskifte ; Eng., deed of exchange), has been 
allowed to ley-breck (Dan., ligge-brak ; Eng., to lie fallow). 
Through this field winds a beck (Dan., Bsek; Eng., brook), 
or rivulet well stocked with fish, in which with a Hester 
(Dan., Lyster; Icelandic, Ljostr, grains, or a sort of barbed 
iron fork on a long pole) one may be able to make a good 
capture. 

In the river are the trows, or troughs (Jutland, trow ; 



Sect. VIII.J NORTH-ENGLISH DIALECT. 88 

Old Scan., Jpro), made use of to cross over to the 
opposite shore. These trows, or troughs, are two small 
boats, originally trunks of trees hollowed out, and held 
together by a cross-pole. He who wishes to pass over 
places a foot in each trough or boat, and rows himself 
forward with the help of an oar. It is said that Edmund 
Ironsides and Canute the Great rowed over to the Isle of 
Olney (in the river Severn) in such boats at the time when 
they concluded an agreement to divide England between 
them. The original inhabitants of Europe undoubtedly 
passed the great rivers in the same simple manner. 

Amongst the words in the popular language that still 
remind one of ancient Scandinavian customs, those of 
yuletide, yuling (Christmas), yide-candles (Dan., Julelys), 
and yule-cakes (Dan., Julekager), deserve particular notice. 
Christmas was certainly kept as a solemn feast among the 
Anglo-Saxons, but it does not appear to have had that 
importance with them which it had with the Scandina- 
vians ; of which this is a proof, that the old name of 
Christmas (Yule) is preserved only in those districts in the 
north that were more especially colonized by the Northmen. 
Yule, or the mid-winter feast, was, in the olden times, as 
it still partly is, the greatest festival in the countries of 
Scandinavia. Yule bonfires were kindled round about as 
festival-fires to scare witches and wizards ; offerings were 
made to the gods; the boar dedicated to Freyr (Dan., 
Sonegalte) was placed on the table, and over it the 
warriors vowed to perform great deeds. Pork, mead, and 
ale abounded, and yuletide passed merrily away with 
games, gymnastics, and mirth of all kinds. It is singular 
enough that even to the present day it is not only the 
custom in several parts of England to bring a garnished 
boar's head to table at Christmas, but that the descendants of 
the Northmen, in Yorkshire and the ancient Northumber- 
land, do not even now neglect to place a large piece of 
wood on the fire on Christmas Eve, which is by some 
called the yule-block, by others yule-clog, or yide-log (per- 



84 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. Till. 

haps from the old Scandinavian lag, log, a felled tree; 
Norwegian, laag). Superstitious persons do not, however, 
allow the whole log to be consumed, but take it out of the 
fire again in order to preserve it until the following year. 
Exactly similar observances of Christmas customs still 
exist in the Scandinavian North. At Smaaland, in Sweden, 
a boar's-head, called julh'os (from lids, the skull), is set 
on the table at Christmas ; and in East Gothland a 
large loaf, called juhlegalt, is seen on table throughout the 
festival, of which, however, nothing is eaten. Jiihlhos and 
juhlegalt, as well as the boar's-head in the north of 
England before alluded to, owe their origin unmistakeably 
to the expiatory barrow-pig, or " Gait," offered up by the 
old Northmen to Freyr. The remembrance of the games 
of the Northmen is also preserved in England in the 
Scandinavian word lake (to play), which is heard only in 
the ancient Danish districts. 

To enumerate all the Scandinavian words in the Euglish 
popular tongue would, from their quantity, be both a 
tedious and a superfluous labour. The following selec- 
tion of a hundred of the most common of them will 
surely be regarded as sufficient clearly to prove in what a 
highly remarkable manner " the Danish tongue " has im- 
printed itself on the north of England, in comparison with 
other countries occupied by the Normans, as, for example, 
Normandy; where the Scandinavian language, notwith- 
standing the very considerable immigrations from Scandi- 
navia, has disappeared to such a degree that but very few 
traces of it now remain. 



Sect. VIII.] 



NORTH-ENGLISH DIALECT. 



85 



A Hundred Danish Words, selected from 


the Vulgar Tongue, 


or Common Language, North of Watlinga Strait. 


Provincial English *. 


English. 


Danish. 


arr 


scar 


Ar 


attercop 


spider 


Edderkop 


awns 


beads of corn 


Avner 


bank 


to beat 


banke 


bairn, beam 


child 


Bam 


bede 


to pray 


bede 


bid 


to invite 


byde, indbyde 


bide 


to stay 


bie 


big, biggin 


to build, building 


bygge, Bygning 


blend 


to mix 


blande 


boll, or bole 


trunk of a tree 


Bui (Trse) 


brosten 


burst 


brusten 


clammer 


to quarrel, grasp 


klamres, fast-klamre 


claver 


to climb 


klavre 


chive 


hoof 


Klov, Hov 


dyke, dike 


ditch 


Dige 


elt 


to knead 


aelte 


festing-penny 


earnest-money 


Faestepenge 


fra 


from 


fra 


frem folks 


strangers 


Fremmede Folk 


full 


drunk 


fuld, drukken 


gainest way 


nearest way 


Gjenvei 


gammon 


merriment 


Grammen 


gants, ganty 


to be merry 


gantes 


gar 


to make 


gjore 


gar 


to hedge 


gjerde 


glowing (glouring) 


staring 


gloende 


greit, greets 


to weep, tears 


groede, Graad 


grepen 


clasped 


greben 


grise 


young pig 


Griis 


groats 


husked corn 


grudtet Korn 


hack 


to stammer 


hakke, stamme 


halikeld 


holy-well 


Helligkilde 


hand clout 


towel 


Haandklsede 


handsel 


earnest 


Handsel 


hams, hams-pan 


brain, brain pan 


Hjerne, Hjeme-skal 


heck 


hay-rack 


Hsekke (til Ho) 


hesp 


latch 


Haspe (Dor) 


hose 


stocking 


hose 


kaam, kem 


comb, to comb 


Kam, ksemme 


kail, kale 


cabbage 


Kaal 


kern-milk 


churn-milk 


Kjernemelk 


kern 


to churn 


kjerne 


kilt 


to tuck up 


kilte (op) 


kitling 


young cat 


Killing 


laid 


just frozen 


logt (lis) 


mauf, meaugh 


brother-in-law 


Maag, Svoger 



Many of these words are Scotch. 



86 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 



[Sect. Till. 



Provincial English. 


English. 


Danish. 


mind 


to remember 


mindes 


nab 


to catch 


nappe 


neaf (or neif) neaf-full 


fist, handful 


Nseve, Naevefuld 


neb 


bill, beak 


Naeb 


nipping 


to sip 


nippe 


pot-scar 


pot-sherd 


Potteskaar 


quern 


hand-mill 


Qvsern 


querken'd 


suffocated 


qvaerket 


raise 


a heap of stones, cairn 


Kos, Steendysse 


read (or rede) 


to guess, know fully 


raade, udtyde 


read 


to comb 


rede (Haar) 


reasty 


toasted 


ristet 


rid 


to remove 


rydde 


rig, riggin 


back, ridge of a house 


%g> %gning 


rip up 


to revive (injuries) 


rippe op 


rise 


underwood 


Riis (Underskov) 


rive 


to split, divide 


rive (splitte) 


sackless 


without suit 


sageslos 


sark 


shirt 


Saerk 


scam 


dung 


Skarn (Smuds) 


schrike (or skrike) 


to cry, shriek 


skrige 


scoll 


toast (health) 


Skaal (Drikkelag) 


sele 


to bind, fasten 


bind i Sele 


skift 


to change (clothes) 


skifte (Kleeder) 


slade 


sledge 


Slsede 


sleek 


to put out (quench) 


slukke 


smiddy 


blacksmith's shop 


Smedie 


smooth-hole 


hiding-place 


Smuthul 


smouch 


kiss 


Smadsk (Kys) 


snirp 


to pine 


snirpe 


speer (or spar) 


to ask 


sporge 


spire 


young tree 


Spire 


stee (or stey) 


ladder 


Stige 


steert 


point 


Stjert 


stew- 


dust 


Stov 


stive 


to raise dust 


stove 


stumpy 


short, thick 


stumpet 


stot 


young horse, or bullock 


Stod (Hest) 


swale 


shade 


Svale (Skygge) 


sype (or sipe) 


to drop gently (ooze) 


sive 


tang 


sea- weed 


Tang 


theaker 


thatcher 


Teekker 


toom (or tuam) 


empty 


torn 


twine 


to murmur, weep 


tvine 


unrid 


disorderly, filthy 


uredt, urede 


uphold 


to maintain 


holde oppe 


wadmal, woadmel 


coarse woollen cloth 


Vadmel 


wan 


rod 


Vaand 


wark 


ache, pain 


Veerk (Smerte) 


way zalt 


to weigh salt, a game 


veie Salt (Leeg) 


wong 


a field 


Vsenge 



Sect. VIII.] NOETH-ENGLISH DIALECT. 87 

These numerous and striking Danish, terms, still exist- 
ing in the north of England almost a thousand years 
after the destruction of the Danish power there, and after 
an almost equally protracted struggle with the constant 
progress of the English language, show that the Scandi- 
navian tongue must possess no mean degree of durability. 
These Scandinavian words, moreover, taken in conjunction 
with the unusually numerous Scandinavian names of places 
in England, put it beyond all doubt that a Scandinavian 
population must have been far more diffused, and have 
taken much deeper root there, than in any other foreign 
land. 

The popular language of the north of England is par- 
ticularly remarkable for its agreement with the dialects 
found in the peninsula of Jutland. Several words which 
are common to the north of England and Jutland, are not 
to be found elsewhere. For instance, in the north of 
England, the shafts of the carts used there are called 
limmers, a word clearly of the same origin as the Jut- 
landish Hem, a broom ; both being derived from the old 
Scandinavian limi, which signifies boughs, branches. But 
it is the broad pronunciation in particular that makes the 
resemblance so surprising. Thus, for instance, we have 
in the north of England, sty an (Dan., Steen; Eng., a 
stone), yen (Dan., een ; Eng., one), welt (Dan., vselte ; Eng., 
to upset), swelt (Dan., vansmsegte; Eng., overcome with 
heat and exercise), maw (Dan., Mave; Eng., stomach), 
lowe (Dan., Lue; Eng., flame), donse (Dan., dandse; Eng., 
dance), fey (Dan., feie; Eng., to sweep), ouse (Dan., Oxe; 
Eng., ox), roun (Dan., Kogn ; Eng., spawn or roe of fishes), 
war and war (Dan., vserre og vserre; Eng., worse and 
worse) ; with many others of the same kind, which are pure 
Jutlandish. 

On the whole, of all the Danish dialects the Jutland 
approaches nearest to the English. The West Jutlander 
uses the article ce before words like the English "the," 
although the Danish language in other provinces does not 



88 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

recognise such an article; and the broad open w, which 
the natives of Funen and Zealand can, after the greatest 
difficulty, only pronounce with tolerable correctness, is as 
easy for the Jutlander as for the Englishman. Many 
Danish words pronounced in Jutlandish become purely 
English; as, for instance, foul (Eng., fowl; Dan., Fugl), 
kow (Eng., cow; Dan., Ko), fued (Eng., food; Dan., Fod), 
stued(Eng., stood; Dan., stod), drown (Eng., drown; Dan., 
drukne) ; besides many others. Many words are even 
quite common to. Jutland and England; such as the 
Jutlandish forenoun and atternoun (Eng., forenoon and 
afternoon; Dan., Formiddag and Eftermiddag), stalker 
(Eng., stalker; Dan., en Stork), kok (Eng., cock; Dan., 
en Hane), want (Eng., to want; Dan., mangle, behove). 

This affords a very important proof of the close con- 
nection which must have anciently subsisted between Jut- 
land and England. Although it may be doubtful to what 
extent the Jutes had tracts specially assigned to them 
for their settlements in the south of England (as in 
Kent and the Isle of Wight, at the time of the Anglo- 
Saxon conquest in the fifth century), it is, at all events, 
quite certain that, both at that time and at a later period, 
a number of Jutes settled on the east coast of England, 
and particularly in the more northern districts. Jutland 
lies nearer to England than any other part of Scandinavia. 
The Limfjord, which in remote ages was a roadstead for 
the Vikings' ships, and afterwards the rendezvous of Saint 
Canute's fleet when he intended to reconquer England, 
certainly dispatched numerous Vikings' barks to the 
British coasts. In legends still existing in Jutland, the 
old connections with England, and the wars there, are not 
forgotten ; nay, in some places the people tell of battles 
fought with the English in Jutland itself: of which 
ancient names of places likewise bear witness, as in the 
neighbourhood of Holstebro, " Angelandsmoor " (Ange- 
landsmosen), with the adjacent " Prince Angel's barrow " 
(Prinds Angels Hoi), which is surrounded with a number of 



Sect. VIII.] POPULAR SONGS. 89 

tumuli. The remembrance of the same old connections 
with England still resounds in the Jutlandish and other 
ancient Scandinavian ballads, or heroic songs, in which the 
scene is frequently laid on the "engelandish strand." 

The near relationship of the north Englishmen with 
the Danes and their Scandinavian brothers is reflected 
both in popular songs and in the folk-lore. It is well 
known that the old Northmen were in a high degree lovers 
of minstrelsy. The Scandinavian kings were generally 
accompanied on their Viking expeditions by bards, who 
encouraged and cheered the champions with songs re- 
specting the exploits of former times, and about every 
glorious deed that had been performed during the expedi- 
tions. These historical epics passed from mouth to mouth, 
and from generation to generation. Nor did the Scandi- 
navian conqueror in foreign lands disdain to be celebrated 
by the bards of his native country. Canute the Great, 
who was himself a poet, placed the Scandinavian bard high 
in his hall ; and numerous lays, which are still partly pre- 
served in the Sagas, sounded his fame over the north. 
After the warlike life of heathenism had ceased, the 
poetical and historical talent of the people expressed itself 
in ballads and heroic songs, which, during the middle ages, 
succeeded the lays of the ancient bards. The old ballad, 
in its characteristic form, belongs peculiarly to the countries 
of Scandinavia ; and it is very remarkable that the cor- 
responding English ballads, which often, both in their pre- 
vailing tone and in their form— as, for instance, with re- 
gard to the burthen — betray a surprising similarity with the 
Scandinavian, are in England found exclusively in the north. 
They are, however, heard still more frequently in the 
Scotch Lowlands, whither great immigrations of Northmen 
also took place. In the north of England a very peculiar 
kind of song for two voices was also formerly heard, and 
which the English themselves ascribed to the Danes. 

It is more difficult to adduce pure Scandinavian remains 



90 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

of popular superstitions, as in this respect the Teutonic 
races have so very much in common; and consequently 
one is afraid to draw too strong conclusions from the 
striking agreement usually shown in the phantoms of the 
imagination among north Englishmen and their Scandi- 
navian kinsmen. Yet it deserves to be mentioned that 
the Scandinavian name Nbk (a river-sprite), is not yet 
forgotten in Yorkshire ; although some by " Nick " or 
" Oud-Nick " erroneously imagine the devil to be meant, 
instead of the water-sprite. Many little tricks performed 
by the nix (Dan., nisse, a brownie) are known there, as 
well as in Scandinavia. Once, in England, the conversa- 
tion happening to turn on these little beings, I related our 
Scandinavian legend about a peasant who was plagued and 
teazed in all possible ways by a nisse or brownie, till at 
last he could bear it no longer, and determined to flit 
(move house) to another place. When he had conveyed 
almost all his goods to the new house, and was just driving 
thither with the last load, he accidently turned round, and 
whom did he see ? Why, the brownie with his red cap, 
who sat quietly on the top of the load, and nodded 
familiarly to him, with the words, " Now we flit." One of 
the persons present immediately expressed a lively sur- 
prise on hearing a legend related as Danish, and that, too, 
almost word for word, which he had often heard in Lan- 
cashire in his youth. The word flit was, and still is, used 
there by the common people. 

A natural result of the long-continued and extensive 
dominion of the Danes in the north of England is, that 
they also are classed with the invisible mystical beings, 
which, in the imagination of the people, haunt that dis- 
trict. In certain places among the remote mountains of 
the north-west, people still fancy that they hear on the 
evening breeze tones as of strings played upon, and 
melancholy lays in a foreign tongue. Often, too, even 
when nobody hears anything unusual, the animals prick 



Sect. IX.J EFFECTS OF THE DANISH CONQUEST. 91 

up their ears as if in astonishment. It is " the Danish 
boy," who sadly sings the old bardic lays over the barrows 
of his once mighty forefathers. 



Section IX. 



The Outrages of the Danes. — The Danes and Normans. — Influence 
of the Danes in England. 

It is thus shown, by numerous and incontestable proofs, 
that the Danes held dominion in England for a short period, 
and that they also exercised, in conjunction with the 
Normans, so important and lasting an influence for cen- 
turies before and after the time of Canute the Great, at 
all events in that portion of England lying to the north of 
Watlinga Street, that even a great part of the population 
there may be safely assumed to be of Danish extraction. 
Nevertheless, the generally received opinion in England 
on this subject is expressed in the following passage in a 
brief History of Denmark lately published in London 
(" Edda, or the Tales of a Grandmother"), which states 
that after the suppression of the Danish power in Eng- 
land, " Both nations [the Danes and English] separated soon 
after, and in a few years the Danish supremacy had vanished 
like a vision of the night ; so little did it leave any traces in 
England, or produce any important political benefits to 
Denmark." 

It would, however, have been extremely astonishing, 
nay, utterly inexplicable, if great effects had not mani- 
fested themselves in Denmark from the expeditions 
towards the west, and from the complete conquest of a 
country like England, which, in regard both to religious 
and political development, stood so far above Scandinavia. 
History, also, sufficiently shows of what great importance 
the conquest of England was, not only for Denmark, but 
for the whole Scandinavian North. The Christianity of 
Scandinavia arose, indeed, out of the smoking ruins of the 



92 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IX. 

English churches and convents. Scandinavian kings and 
warriors were frequently baptized during their Viking ex- 
peditions; and it was English priests who proclaimed 
the doctrines of Christianity on the plains of Denmark and 
in the rocky valleys of Sweden and Norway. Many of the 
first bishops in the North were of English extraction, and 
even the style of the ecclesiastical edifices attested the 
powerful influence of wealthy England. The more ad- 
vanced cultivation of science and art in general which 
prevailed there, communicated itself in many directions to 
the countries of Scandinavia; where it certainly con- 
tributed, just as much as the great emigrations, to weaken 
heathenism, and thus, both in a religious and political 
point of view, to found a new and better order of things. 

But for whatever benefits Denmark and the North re- 
ceived in this manner from England, they did not fail to 
yield a full equivalent. It cannot reasonably be reproached 
to the Danes exclusively that, in order to obtain settle- 
ments in England, they made their way with fire and 
sword, for this was no more than all other conquerors, and 
particularly the Eomans and Anglo-Saxons, had done 
before them. With regard to bloodshed, and acts of 
violence and destruction, the Anglo-Saxon conquest of 
England exceeded rather than fell short of the Danish. It 
annihilated the civilization which had been so widely 
disseminated there by the Eomans, and subjugated or ex- 
pelled the older inhabitants in the most frightful manner. 
It is the circumstance of the Danish expeditions having 
taken place at a far later time, when the monks wrote 
chronicles, and when on the whole history was more cir- 
cumstantial, that has alone contributed to place the Danish 
expeditions in so prominent and so hateful a light. 

But even the present age, with its severe views, is 
scarcely justified in condemning unconditionally the Scan- 
dinavian sea-king, who was not instigated solely, or even 
chiefly, by a savage desire of plunder or murder, but who 
valued deeds of arms, a glorious name, and the joys of 



Sect. IX.] OUTRAGES OF THE DANES. 93 

Valhalla, more than his life, and who therefore " went to 
death with a laugh." Even with him religion was a spur 
to his achievements in Christian lands. He was combat- 
ing for his own gods, in whom in general he certainly 
believed as firmly as most of the Christians of that time 
did in Christ. The ideas, too, which then prevailed re- 
specting conquest, slaughter, and rapine, were altogether 
different from ours. If the heathen Viking regarded it as 
an honour to acquire lands and booty by his sword, the 
same thought was also cherished not only by the early 
Christians, but throughout the middle ages; when Christian 
citizens, noblemen, and princes contended in mortal com- 
bat, with fire and sword, for the possession of estates 
and lands. The Christian Anglo-Saxons of those times 
felt no hesitation in secretly massacreing the Danes 
who had settled in England; and as many of these had 
been converted, one Christian thus murdered another! 
To dismember general history into a number of uncon- 
nected events, and then to pass judgment upon these 
separately according to our moral feelings, would be an 
infamous act, and more difficult to defend before the 
tribunal of morality than perhaps all the expeditions of 
the heathen Danish Vikings put together. Such a method 
of proceeding would lead to the most confined views of 
history that can possibly be imagined. No correct con- 
ception can be formed of any part of the history of the 
world if it be not examined in its due connection, whereby 
both causes and effects become perceptible. Many events, 
which the moralist would otherwise condemn, find in this 
manner both excuse and defence in the superior historical 
necessity that produced them. Viewed in this light, violent 
devastations, which have for a time, perhaps, arrested the 
progressive development of a people, will appear to have 
ultimately founded and educed purer and more wholesome 
manners and customs. Severe shocks are now and then 
as useful for the general welfare of a nation as a violent 



94 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IX. 

fit of sickness for the health of an individual, or storms 
for the purification of an oppressive atmosphere. 

The germ of a higher civilization was first implanted 
in the rude and warlike tribes, which then predominated 
throughout Europe, by the Greeks and Eomans. The 
bold expeditions of the latter, in particular, introduced the 
arts and sciences into the countries north of the Alps ; 
and it was from the south that even the Christian religion 
began its progress. But before Christianity could take 
firm root among the European tribes, before a really 
Christian state could be founded, it was necessary that an 
immense revolution should take place. Heathenism and 
barbarism then collected all their strength in order to 
destroy Roman power and Roman civilization. The Roman 
Empire, and with it almost all the older states, was over- 
thrown by the vast national migrations ; and a new and 
different population, with which a fresh civilization was to 
begin, spread itself over Europe. It was these migrations 
that brought the Anglo-Saxons into England, after they 
had abandoned their ancient habitations on the south and 
south-west shores of the Baltic; whence they were ex- 
pelled by the advancing Slavonic tribes of the Wends, 
or Vandals. 

Contemporaneously with the diffusion of Christianity in 
the south and west of Europe, larger Christian states 
gradually arose. Charlemagne had already, about the 
year 800, founded an immense kingdom; and, in order 
to strengthen it both against inward disturbances and 
outward attacks, had established apparently durable in- 
stitutions. But as it was too often necessary, in those 
early times, to force Christianity on the people by dint of 
arms, without seeking any real support for it in their con- 
victions and belief — a circumstance that rendered prevalent 
a very great moral relaxation, and even wickedness — they 
were thus induced to regard the political institutions which 
sprang from it as something foreign, which neither pro- 



Sect. IX.] EISE OF CHEISTIAN STATES. 95 

ceeded from themselves, nor possessed any intrinsic 
strength. Both Church and State tottered. The whole 
structure of Christian communities was in its weak and 
early childhood ; and it was not till the people had been 
convinced of its necessity, by their calamities and suffer- 
ings, that Christianity was able to gain a really firm 
footing. 

The Christian States were now attacked at once and 
on all sides by the enemies of Christianity, the Ma- 
hometans and heathens. The Saracens, towards the south; 
the Magyars, or Madjarers, the forefathers of the Hun- 
garians, towards the east ; and the Northmen towards the 
north and west, all invaded the Christian States. Europe 
long groaned under this terrible scourge. Meanwhile, 
however, separate States grew stronger in this combat 
with their exterior enemies; whilst great tribes of the 
latter settled in the conquered districts, adopted Chris- 
tianity, and mingled with the natives. The destructive 
expeditions which for a time indeed retarded, in certain 
directions, the commencements of civilization, ended by 
exhausting all the strength of heathenism, in preparing a 
complete victory for Christianity, and in producing in Church 
and State a vigour hitherto unknown in those lands which 
had long embraced the Christian faith. It was now that 
a period was put to the throes which had given birth to a 
new and Christian Europe. The descendants of the law- 
less Vikings became the most zealous champions of Chris- 
tianity. The Normans, who by degrees had raised them- 
selves to be the ruling people in several of the western 
and southern States of Europe, and had thus brought a 
new and wholesome power to the helm, broke many a 
doughty lance with the Mahometans and heathens. In 
these crusades the knight was now accompanied by the 
troubadour, as the Viking formerly had been by the bard 
or scald. It was among the Normans in particular that 
the knightly and feudal system developed itself, which was 
of such decided importance throughout the middle ages, 



96 THE DANES IN ENGLAND." [Sect. IX. 

and the forerunner of the freer and more advanced state 
of society of modern times. 

Under the name of " Normans " are included all those 
swarms of Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes, which, from the 
close of the eighth until far into the eleventh century, 
either laid waste or settled on the eastern and southern 
coasts of the Baltic, as well as the coasts of the west 
and south of Europe. "Norman" signifies neither more 
nor less than a man from the north. The Danish con- 
quest of England was therefore just as fully Normanic as 
the conquest, by the Norwegians and Danes, of a part 
of France, called, after them, Normandy. Hence there 
was a natural reason why the Danish conquerors, and 
Svend Tveskjaeg in particular, concluded an alliance with 
the dukes of Normandy, in order that they might find a 
reception among these kinsmen in case they should not be 
able to make themselves masters of England ; and hence, 
in like manner, Canute the Great obtained the more 
readily the hand of Emma, the daughter of a Norman 
(and consequently nearly related) duke. But between the 
above-mentioned conquests there was this difference, that 
the Danish conquest of England, together with the Nor- 
wegian conquests in Scotland and Ireland, was of far 
greater extent, and of quite a different and more extensive 
importance for the British Isles, than the Norwegian- 
Danish conquest of so small a district as Normandy was 
for France. Whilst the Northmen principally brought 
thither only a number of powerful chiefs, who, at the 
expense of the natives, constituted themselves into an 
imperious feudal nobility, and who afterwards for the 
most part went over with William the Conqueror into 
England, in search of still greater feudal possessions, the 
Danish expeditions to and conquest of England were, on 
the contrary, the means of bringing an entirely new 
population into a very considerable portion, perhaps even 
the half, of that kingdom. 

All accounts attest what proud and energetic men the 



Sect. IX.] NORMAN NOBILITY. 97 

Norwegian-Danish Normans were who settled in Nor- 
mandy, and who afterwards became the progenitors and 
founders of the English nobility. The chronicles of that 
time cannot sufficiently praise their bravery and contempt 
of death, whilst at the same time they highly extol their 
chivalric spirit. In but a short time after their settlement 
in France they had readily acquired its politer manners ; and 
not only these, but that higher mental cultivation which 
then raised the southern countries above those of the far 
north. It was a distinguishing trait of the Normans that 
they very quickly accommodated themselves to the man- 
ners and customs of the countries where they settled ; nay, 
even sometimes quite forgot their Scandinavian mother- 
tongue, without, however, losing their original and charac- 
teristic Scandinavian stamp. But what the Normans 
in particular, with all their French refinement, did not 
lose, was the ancient Scandinavian feeling of freedom and 
independence. The descendants of those powerful chiefs 
who had quitted the hearths of their forefathers because 
they would not suffer themselves to be enslaved by kings — 
and who on their arrival in Normandy, when the question 
was put to them, "What title does your chief bear?" are 
said to have answered, " None, we are all equal " — con- 
tinued steadily to maintain their freedom against the 
Norman dukes, and not least so against the despotic 
William the Conqueror, even after he had distributed 
among them the rich estates of conquered Fngland. The 
later English nobility, whose power and influsnce Wil- 
liam's conquest had thus founded, did not in any way 
degenerate from their Norman forefathers. From the 
earliest period of the middle ages the English barons were 
the stoutest protectors and defenders of freedom against 
ambitious kings ; and it is also their respect for the proper 
liberties of the people that has alone insured to them the 
quiet possession of the power which they still continue 
to retain. The English nobility have in several other 
ways preserved to the present time traces of their ancient 

F 



98 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. IX. 

origin. Thus among the English aristocracy we not only 
find the old Scandinavian title of Jarl, or Earl, which in 
the North itself has given way to the German one of Graf, 
or Greve, but a Northman will easily discover many charac- 
teristic traits that remind him of his own ancestors. It is 
truly remarkable that the love of bodily exercises, games, 
hunting, and horse-racing, not to mention the predilection 
for daring sea voyages so strongly prevalent amongst them, 
was likewise manifested, according to the Sagas or legends, 
by the rich and powerful in Iceland, and the rest of the 
Scandinavian fatherlands. 

Under these circumstances it would, indeed, have been 
in the highest degree surprising if the Danish-Norwegian 
Normans, who conquered England at the same period that 
their near kinsmen, the Norwegian-Danish Normans, con- 
quered Normandy, who had migrated from the north for 
the self-same reasons as these kinsmen, and who were 
subject to the same virtues and vices — if these Normans 
in England alone, I say, should have been barbarous 
" robbers and plunderers," trampling on and destroying 
all that was " great and good," whilst their brothers in 
Normandy distinguished themselves by an early civiliza- 
tion, and particularly by a lively feeling for poetry and 
for a further development both of social and political life. 
It must be remembered that the Danish-Norwegian Nor- 
mans, who made conquests in England, did not go thither 
in one great body, but in small divisions, which only by 
degrees, and in the course of about three centuries, settled 
themselves in the districts inhabited by the Anglo-Saxons ; 
and that, though far less numerous than the latter, they 
were not only able firmly to maintain their position among 
them, but at length even to expel them from a groat part 
of the country north-east of Watling-Straet. For this proves 
that the new Scandinavian inhabitants of England, along 
with greater physical strength and more martial prowess 
than the Anglo-Saxons possessed, must have been soon 
able to acquire that skill in the employments of peace, as 



Sect. X.J CHARACTER OF THE DANES. 99 

well as that higher polish and refinement, which in the 
long run could alone insure them the superiority and pre- 
ponderance which they enjoyed over the Anglo-Saxons, 
not only in the rural districts, but in many towns of the 
north of England ; and secure for them such an influence 
as they obtained in England's best and greatest city, even 
London itself. 

Further, that those Northmen, who by the Danish 
conquests became the progenitors of a great part, probably 
as much as half, of the present population of England, 
were just as brave men, and just as great lovers of liberty, 
as their Norman brethren, the ancestors of the English 
nobility ; and that they played a part not much inferior to 
theirs in the development of England's freedom and great- 
ness, a closer examination will probably place in a clearer 
light. 



Section X. 

Commerce and Navigation. 



The Northmen, who in ancient times sailed to foreign 
shores, were far from always being.. Vikings, bent only on 
rapine and plunder, and the conquest of new possessions. 
They were very often peaceful merchants. The remote 
situation of Scandinavia, and the dangers which the 
natives of more southern countries pictured to themselves 
as attendant upon a voyage to that ultima Thule and its 
heathenish inhabitants, must in ancient days, when navi- 
gation was very limited, have deterred foreign merchants 
from visiting it regularly, and bartering their wares. The 
Scandinavian tribes, on the contrary, were at that titne 
almost the only seamen. From the want of all that 
belonged to the exterior comforts and conveniences of 
life in Scandinavia, the business of a merchant who bar- 
tered the products of the north and south, and who brought 
home with him a knowledge of distant and unknown lands, 

F 2 

L.ofO. 



100 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

must early have become a profitable, and, from the dangers 
connected with it, an honourable profession. The trading 
voyages of the merchant were not, indeed, held in such 
esteem as those of the Vikings; yet from the most ancient 
times certain established customs were observed in the 
north for the protection of merchant vessels ; and the 
merchant who, as was frequently the case, had distin- 
guished himself by warlike qualities and shrewdness of 
understanding, was neither despised in the company of 
Vikings, nor in the King's hall. Even chiefs of royal 
descent did not regard it as anything dishonourable to 
exercise the mercantile profession. Already, in the most 
ancient times, a number of trading places were scattered 
round the north, and large annual fail's were held. Once 
a year the ships of the merchants assembled together from 
the whole of Scandinavia, perhaps even from the other 
nearest situated countries, in the Sound of Haleyri, or, as 
it is now called, Elsinore. Booths were erected along the 
shore; foreign wares were bartered for fish, hides, and 
valuable furs ; whilst various games, and all sorts of 
merry-making, took place. 

During the Roman dominion in England, and pro- 
bably even in far earlier times, a tolerably brisk com- 
merce appears to have been kept up between England 
and the countries of Scandinavia, especially Jutland, 
Vendsyssel, and the districts round the Limfjord ; v>here 
also, as a consequence of this, genuine Roman antiquities 
have been dug up at various times. xlfter the conquest 
of England by the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons, and 
still more after the Danes and Norwegians had begun to 
settle there, this intercourse became still more frequent. 
We may safely assert that, so early as the close of the 
ninth and beginning of the tenth century, a very brisk 
trade must have existed between England and the North. 
The Scandinavian element was then so well established, 
that not only did Scandinavian kings reign, and coin 
money, in the north of England, but even that ex- 



Sect. X.] SCANDINAVIAN COMMEKCE. 101 

tremely important old Saxon city, " North- weorig," which 
lay in the very heart of England, was called by the Saxon 
kings themselves, on their coins, by the foreign name of 
"Deorabui" (Deoraby, Dyreby, Derby); although this 
name, according to the English chroniclers' own state- 
ments, was first given to it by the immigrant Danes. 
Some will even recognise Derby in the name of " Doribi," 
which stands on a coin of King Ethelwulf of the middle 
of the ninth century (837-857). At all events it is a 
certain and remarkable proof of the early and wide-ex- 
tended influence of the Scandinavian settlers, even in 
places far in the interior of the country, that " Deorabui " 
appears repeatedly on coins of King Athelstane (924-940), 
and of his immediate successors. It was this same Athel- 
stane who is said to have visited Scandinavia, where he 
learned the language ; and who afterwards educated at his 
court Hagen Adelsteen, the law-giver, who subsequently 
became the first Christian king in Norway. This fact 
also indicates the wide-spread and peaceful connection 
between England and the North, which not long after- 
wards induced the Norwegian King's son, Olaf Trygveson, 
in his treaty of peace with the English king, Ethelred, 
whose lands he had long harried, expressly to stipulate 
for certain rights and privileges in favour of the Scandina- 
vian merchant ships in the English harbours. 

Even in Alfred the Great's time (a.d. 900) the seas and 
lands of Scandinavia were but very little known to the 
Anglo-Saxons; for which reason Alfred, chiefly with a 
view to trade and commerce, sent Ulfsten and the Nor- 
wegian Ottar on voyages of discovery to the Baltic, and along 
the coast of Norway to the White Sea. That according 
to the laws of his country an Anglo-Saxon merchant ob- 
tained the rank and title of Thane, or Chief, when he had 
thrice crossed the sea in his own ship, sufficiently attests 
how desirous the Anglo- Saxon kings were to awaken among 
their subjects, by means of large rewards, a desire for such 
voyages. Subsequently, however, during the expeditions 



102 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

of the Vikings and Normans, when the dangers attending 
long voyages had become still greater than before for the 
Anglo-Saxons, owing to the perfectly overwhelming force 
of the Northmen at sea, the trade, with Scandinavia at 
least, must have continued to remain in the hands of the 
Scandinavian merchants ; who, as we learn from the Sagas, 
were continually making voyages, as well from Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway, as from the still more distant Ice- 
land, to England, and the other countries of the West. 
Wherever the Normans had won new settlements, Scandi- 
navian merchants likewise established themselves in order 
to maintain a steady connection with their ancient home. 
It is for this simple reason that we find in those times so 
many Danes and Norwegians settled in the most important 
trading places, not only in England (in London, South- 
wark, Derby, Grimsby, York, Whitby, and other towns), 
but also, as we shall see in the sequel, in Ireland and 
in Normandy, where the city of "Ruda," or Rouen, is 
spoken of as an important place of trade often visited by 
the Northmen. 

The Scandinavian merchant vessels brought not only 
the wares of Scandinavia to the British Islands and other 
countries of the West ; they likewise brought merchandise 
from the remote East. From the most ancient times, in- 
deed, the Northmen had maintained connections with the 
eastern countries ; which was a natural consequence of 
their having emigrated thence into the North, and left 
friends behind them there. By means of these connec- 
tions, metals otherwise totally unknown in the North, and 
especially gold, were certainly brought thither at a very 
early period from the mountains of the East. Subsequently, 
in the fifth and sixth centuries, when fresh migrations 
from the East had taken place, a closer connection was 
ppened with the eastern Roman Empire, and particularly 
with Constantinople, so that coins of that empire, and 
other valuables, began to be circulated in the North. 
After the Scandinavian colonists, too, had conquered king- 



Sect. X.] CONNECTIONS WITH THE EAST. 103 

doms for themselves in the countries which now form mo- 
dern Russia, and taken possession of the city of Novgorod, 
a regular commercial route appears to have been opened, 
through Russia, between Constantinople and the North, 
by which the Varangians passed, who entered as body- 
guards into the service of the Emperors of the East. 
But as far as regards trade, Novgorod and the Scandinavian 
colonists in Russia promoted a connection with Asia, 
which was of far greater extent and importance. 

Before the passage to the East Indies by sea was dis- 
covered, and particularly before the Genoese and Venetians 
began to trade in the Black Sea and on the coasts of Asia, the 
main road from Arabia and the countries round the Cas- 
pian Sea to the Baltic and Scandinavia, lay through Russia, 
along the great rivers. To judge from the Oriental coins 
found both in Russia and in the Scandinavian countries, 
this commercial road must have been used from the eighth 
until far in the eleventh century, when it was broken up 
by internal disturbances in Asia, and by contemporary re- 
volutions in Russia and the North. The road ran either 
from Transoxana (in Turan) to the countries north of the 
Caspian Sea, whence the merchandise was then brought 
along the river Volga to the Baltic ; or else from Khorasan 
(in Iran), through Armenia, to the Black Sea ; whence the 
Khazars and other people again conveyed it up the rivers 
farther towards the North. How considerable this trade 
must have been may be seen from the numerous hints 
in the Sagas, as well as from the still-existing Arabian 
accounts of merchants who in those days visited the coasts 
of the Baltic for the sake of trade, where considerable 
trading places, such as Sleswick and many others, are 
mentioned ; but still more than all these, from the very 
great number of Arabian coins that have been dug up both 
in Russia and Scandinavia. In Sweden, and particularly in 
the island of Gothland, such an immense quantity of these 
has been found at various times, that in Stockholm alone 



104 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

above twenty thousand pieces have been preserved, 
presenting more than a thousand different dies, and 
coined in about seventy towns in the eastern and northern 
districts of the dominions of the Caliphs. Five-sixths of 
them were coined by Samanidic Caliphs. Together with the 
coins, a great mass of ornaments has been dug up, con- 
sisting of rings and other articles in silver, which are dis- 
tinguished by a peculiar workmanship. On the whole, it 
appears that silver first came by this way into the North, 
where it was not generally circulated before the ninth and 
tenth centuries, and consequently at the time when the 
trade with Arabia was in full activity. 

These discoveries of Arabian coins in the north of Europe, 
but which are confined to the shores of the Baltic, the 
German Ocean, and the Irish Sea, undoubtedly prove that 
Scandinavia, and particularly the countries on its eastern 
coasts, together with the islands of Gothland, Oland, and 
Bornholm, must have been the principal depot for Arabian 
merchandise. It was the trade with the East that origin- 
ally gave considerable importance to the city of Visby in 
Gothland ; and it was subsequently the Russian trade 
that made Visby, in conjunction with Novgorod, important 
members of the German Hanseatic league. As long as 
the Arabian trade flourished, Gothland was the centre of a 
very animated traffic. Even now an almost incredible 
number of German, Hungarian, and particularly Anglo- 
Saxon coins, of the tenth and eleventh centuries, is dug 
up in the island. The collection of coins in Stockholm 
comprises an assortment of Anglo-Saxon coins, mostly 
the product of these discoveries, which, for extent and 
completeness, surpasses the greatest collections of the sort 
even in London and England. 

The important and extensive commercial intercourse 
between Scandinavia and England, to which this so de- 
cidedly points, can also be traced in England itself. 
Oriental or Arabian coins, struck in the countries near the 



Sect. X.] AEABTAN COINS IN THE NOKTH. 105 

Caspian Sea, are dug up both in England and Ireland in 
conjunction with the very same kind of peculiar silver 
rings, and other ornaments of the same metal, that are 
also found with the Arabian coins in Scandinavia and 
Eussia; nay, they are sometimes dug up, as in Cuer- 
dale, in conjunction with coins of Danish- Norwegian kings 
and jarls ; a fact which still further confirms the opinion 
that they were brought over to the British Isles by the North- 
men. This connection with Arabia through the countries of 
Scandinavia may probably have brought to England, as well 
as to the North, such a mass of silver as enabled the Anglo- 
Saxon kings to mint that surprising number of silver coins, 
which appears at once in such forcible contrast to the want of 
silver in the preceding centuries. The ancient Britons had 
little or no silver before the Koman conquest. The Bomans, 
who had large silver mines in Spain, certainly brought 
silver money with them into the British Islands ; but after 
the overthrow of their dominion, a want of silver again 
prevailed, and continued, as the coins show, until far into 
the eighth and ninth centuries. Silver was consequently in- 
troduced into England and Scandinavia, generally speaking, 
about the same time ; and there is undoubtedly far greater 
probability that it was brought into these countries in the 
same way — that is, from Asia through Eussia — than that it 
should have come into England through the Moors in 
Spain ; of whose caliphs there are very rarely any coins 
found in England, and between whom and the English the 
intercourse at that period seems to have been but very 
limited. In the treasure found at Cuerdale the rings and 
other silver ornaments were for the most part broken, and 
twisted, or even melted, together. Something similar has 
been observed in the treasure trove in the countries round 
the Baltic, and in Eussia. This clearly proves that silver, 
as an article of commerce, was brought from Asia to the 
North, where it was melted and converted into ornaments 
and coins. 

As long as the Norman expeditions lasted, and on the 

f 3 



.106 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

whole as long as the Scandinavian supremacy at sea sufficed 
to protect the Scandinavian merchants and their ships, 
they continued to make voyages on their own account to 
the countries colonized by the Northmen. Thus the 
Anglo-Saxon coins dug up in the island of Gothland in- 
dicate a brisk and uninterrupted commerce between Scan- 
dinavia and England from the time of the Anglo-Saxon 
king Edgar (959-975) down to the death of Edward the 
Confessor and the Norman conquest (1066). But from that 
time, and particularly after the year 1 100, there is a remark- 
able decrease in the Anglo-Saxon coins found in Gothland ; 
which is a natural result of the interruption of the previous 
connection, through the hostile relations that ensued 
between the descendants of William the Conqueror 
and the Scandinavian kings ; who steadily continued to 
claim the crown of England. Later in the middle ages 
the countries of Scandinavia fell more and more under 
the commercial yoke of the German Hanse Towns ; whilst 
in England, on the contrary, a freer and healthier state 
of commerce was continually developing itself. The 
Danish king, Canute the Great, made it a point of the 
utmost importance to conclude commercial treaties with 
various foreign nations ; and the Scandinavian merchants 
settled in England essentially contributed to make these 
leagues profitable. Old authors expressly notice the in- 
fluence of these merchants on British trade. We also find 
evidence of it not only in their great number, and the 
weight they possessed in several English towns, — especially. 
London, where they had their own churches, markets, and 
courts of law, and where, as before stated, they even at 
times decided the election of a king, as in the case of 
Harald Harefoot, — but also in the names of money after- 
wards retained in the English language, as " March " and 
" Ora," from the Scandinavian " Mark " and " Ore." It 
was a natural consequence that commerce should at the 
same time make great progress, as the numerous Scan- 
dinavian settlers in England, and the Danish conquest, 



Sect. X.J ANCIENT NAVIGATION. 107 

had infused a new and hitherto unknown life into every- 
thing relating to navigation, without which no animated 
trade could have flourished in the British Islands. 

The ancient Britons were by no means a seafaring 
people. They appear to have confined themselves to short 
coasting voyages between the islands, and over the Irish 
and English channels. They had, therefore, no fleet to 
protect their coasts from the attacks of the Romans. 
Their vessels consisted either of the trunks of trees hol- 
lowed out, or of small frail boats formed of interwoven 
branches, or wicker-work, covered with hides. The 
Celtic nations have, on the whole, never been remarkable 
for their love of the sea, or of a seafaring life. On the 
contrary, they seem to have derived from nature a decided 
antipathy to it ; and even to the present day it is very 
striking to observe how unwillingly their descendants ven- 
ture out to sea. They prefer, under all circumstances, a 
landsman's life, even in remote and barren mountain tracts ; 
nay, their disinclination for everything relating to a sea- 
man's life is carried so far that they neglect, in a way 
almost incredible, the rich fisheries on the western coast 
of Scotland, and on the greater part of the coasts of Ire- 
land ; although, in the last-named country especially, 
famine carries off the inhabitants in shoals. In those vil- 
lages where fishing is carried on to any extent, the inhabi- 
tants are in general descended from immigrant foreigners. 
Thus it is said that the fishermen on the west coast of 
Ireland are descended from Spaniards ; and, to judge from 
their appearance, the assertion finds some confirmation. 

Nor were the Anglo-Saxons a seafaring people, in the 
proper sense of the term. They comprised, it is true, 
Jutes, Angles, and Frisians ; but the Saxons were the 
most numerous, and the Saxon disposition has always 
clung to a life ashore. It was natural, however, that the 
art of navigation should gradually develop itself among the 
Anglo-Saxons as they advanced in civilization and refine- 
ment. But how little they were at home on the sea, even 
in the time of Alfred the Great, is shown by the feeble 



108 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

resistance they were able to offer to the Danes. It is true 
that Alfred had large ships of war built in order to protect 
the coasts ; but he was obliged to man them, in part at 
least, with Frisians. We are further told that these ships 
were much larger than those of the Danes. Yet the 
history of the tenth and eleventh centuries affords no proof 
that these ships were able in the long run to prevent the 
conquests of the Danes, or that they served to increase the 
Anglo-Saxon skill in seamanship. 

Even the Greeks and Komans, however much they dis- 
tinguished themselves in other ways, as in literature and 
art, did not make any remarkable progress in seamanship. 
Their navigation chiefly consisted of trips along the 
coast or voyages across the Mediterranean ; and if an 
adventurer was now and then bold enough to pass the 
Pillars of Hercules, or Straits of Gibraltar, out into the 
Atlantic Ocean, in order to sail along the west coast of 
Europe to the British Isles, or countries still farther north, 
it was regarded as a great exploit. Regular voyages thither 
were scarcely known ; nor do the Greek and Roman ships 
appear to have been well adapted to keep the sea in the 
wide and stormy Atlantic. 

It was reserved for a land washed by the waters of that 
ocean — the Scandinavian North — to build the first large 
" sea-going " ships, capable not merely of successfully con- 
veying, in calm weather, and under favourable circum- 
stances, a solitary daring navigator over the Atlantic, but 
of affording, in spite of storm and tempest, a secure 
passage over its enormous waives. It is only by duly 
considering how much experience and talent must have 
been exerted, and, above all, how many calculations must 
have been made previous to the building of such a vessel, 
and before the art could be acquired of steering it with 
safety through breakers and in storms, that we shall per- 
ceive how much it redounds to the honour of Scandinavia 
to have made these great and most important advances ; 
which, by founding modern navigation, by extending com- 
mercial intercourse to a degree before unknown, and by 



Sect. X.] SCANDINAVIAN VESSELS. 109 

thus uniting parts of the globe which were previously 
separated, may be said in a manner to have changed the 
face of the world. 

Even before the time when the Danes conquered Eng- 
land, the Northmen had long possessed large and splendid 
sea-going ships. The Norwegians, in particular, were then 
constantly making voyages across the Atlantic, to the 
Shetland Isles, Iceland, and Greenland; nay, they un- 
doubtedly reached the continent of America several times ; 
of which Scandinavian and German historical traditions, 
as well as internal probabilities, bear witness. For, first, 
it was a natural consequence that a people who could navi- 
gate the dangerous and ice-bound sea that surrounds the 
coast of Greenland, and who could establish considerable 
colonies both in north and south Greenland — traces of which 
are still preserved by runic inscriptions, ruins of churches, 
and the foundations of numerous houses — should also be 
able to sail to the coast of America, the navigation to 
which was always attended with less danger. And, 
again, it would have been very strange if the Northmen, 
who sailed without a compass, should always have suc- 
ceeded in reaching Greenland, and never have been driven 
by storms to the neighbouring coast of America. It was, 
besides, just in this manner, according to the statements 
of history, that America was first discovered. It is quite 
another matter whether traces of these early visits of the 
Scandinavians could really be still found in America, 
which there is good reason to doubt. 

The above-mentioned voyages, in the ninth and tenth 
centuries, are sufficient proofs of the excellence of the 
Scandinavian ships. It is not, therefore, to be regarded as 
pure exaggeration if the Sagas use strong expressions in 
celebrating the war-ships of that time, particularly the 
galleys, or, as they were called, long ships ; and amongst 
others that magnificent royal vessel " Ormen hin Lauge " 
(the long snake), which bore the Norwegian kiug, Olaf 
Trygveson, in the celebrated sea-fight of Svoldr (near 



110 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

Greifswald) in the year 1000. These long ships were 
also called " Dragons," because the stems were frequently 
ornamented with carved, and even gilded, images of dragons; 
or else were beheld there figures of vultures, lions, and 
other animals, ornamented with gold. These long ships 
had sometimes crews of several hundred men. Other, and 
partly smaller, ships had different names, such as 
" snekken," " barden," " skeiden," " karven," " barken," 
and several others. Both Scandinavian and English 
chronicles dwell on the description of the splendour with 
which the fleets of the Danish conquerors, Svend and 
Canute, were adorned. Magnificent images glittered on 
the prows ; the sails were worked, or embroidered, with 
gold ; the ropes were of a purple colour ; and on the top of 
the gilded masts sat curiously-carved images of birds, 
which spread out their wings to the breeze. 

With the exception of very imperfect representations 
carved on rocks and runic stones, there are no images left 
in the countries of Scandinavia of these ships of the olden 
time. But the celebrated tapestry at Bayeux, in Normandy, 
on which the conquest of England by the Normans is 
depicted, is a contemporary evidence of the appearance of 
the Normanic ships ; and the accompanying wood-cut 
taken from it, representing probably the ship in which 
"William the Conqueror himself sailed, will clearly prove 
how splendid they really must have been. Both this and 
the rest of the Norman ships in the tapestry perfectly 
agree with the contemporary Danish and Norwegian ships, 
just as we know them from the Sagas, even to the shields 
hung out along the bulwarks. This, however, is nothing 
more than what one might naturally expect, since the 
Normans and Danes, on the conquest of Normandy, must 
have brought such ships with them, as well as that art of 
ship-building which they afterwards carried to greater per- 
fection. For this, however, they found no models in the 
wretched vessels of the Franks and Bretons. But their 
steady connection with the Scandinavian fatherlands, at 



Sect. X. 



SCANDINAVIAN VESSELS. 



Ill 



all events through the Danes and Norwegians in England, 
communicated to them those improvements in the form 
and arrangement of ships which the very extensive ship- 
building of the Northmen, and their long and unin- 
terrupted voyages to Iceland and Greenland, must gradually 




have produced. That influence on maritime affairs, which, 
on the whole, was exercised by the Scandinavian settlers 
in Normandy, showed itself also in the circumstance 



112 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

that Scandinavian names of ships, together with other 
maritime terms, passed into the Eomance language ; as, for 
instance, Jlotte (Dan., Flaade; Eng., fleet), verec (Dan., 
Vrag; Eng., wreck), lord (Dan., Skibsborde, Rand; Eng., 
ship-board), windas (Dan., Vinde, Spil; Eng., windlass) 
mast (Dan., Mast; Eng., mast), sigler (Dan., Seile; Eng., 
sails), esturman (Dan., Styrmand; Eng., steersman), es- 
chiper (Old Northern, skipa; Eng., equip), from which are 
derived the now commonly used French words, equiper, 
equipage, (and with us Danes likewise, eqvipere, Eqvipage- 
mester ; Eng., master of ordnance.) 

As a consequence of the Danish-Norwegian immigra- 
tions, the art of ship-building must also have necessarily 
developed itself in a similar manner in England, on whose 
eastern and north-western coasts the descendants of the 
Vikings had everywhere spread themselves, both by the 
sea and on the rivers. Christianity certainly put an end 
to the life of the Viking. " Sohaner" (sea-cocks) were no 
longer to be found, who scorned " to sleep by the corner of 
the hearth, or under sooty beams." But the Vikings' 
spirit was not therefore dead. The Scandinavian colonists 
could never entirely degenerate from their fathers, who had 
joyfully " ridden on the backs of the waves," and who in 
the icy sea, and on the Atlantic Ocean, had greeted the 
storm only as a welcome friend, which assisted the oars 
and speeded the merry passage. Among the Vikings were 
many like the Danish chief made prisoner by King Athel- 
stane at the siege of York in 927. The King treated him 
well, and retained him in his hall more as an equal than a 
prisoner. But in a few days the chief fled and put out 
again to sea ; for it was, the chronicle adds, just as im- 
possible for him to live on land " as for the fish to live out 
of the water." The immediate descendants of such men, for 
whom a seafaring life was a necessity of their very nature, 
must have continued to dash through the water, particu- 
larly when, as in England, they were settled near seas and 
rivers. During all the internal dissensions and foreign 



Sect.X.] TKADE WITH ICELAND AND GREENLAND. 113 

wars that occupied England in the first centuries after the 
conquest by William the Norman— and which ended by 
binding more firmly together the various Celtic, Teutonic, 
and Scandinavian races which composed its population — the 
maritime affairs of the English were no longer confined, 
as in more ancient times, only to commerce with the nearest 
neighbouring countries. Through the mother countries of 
Scandinavia, and especially Norway, they continued during 
the early part of the middle ages to maintain a lively in- 
tercourse with the distant Scandinavian republics in Iceland 
and Greenland. But when, in the thirteenth century, the 
independence of these republics was overthrown, and they 
were placed as tributary countries under the Norwegian 
crown, the free trade that had previously flourished became 
much more restricted. The consequence of this was, that 
the navigation to Greenland from the north decreased more 
and more, until, in the fifteenth century, when the Scan- 
dinavian population of Greenland had been annihilated by 
sickness and by the assaults of the natives, it entirely 
ceased. What also much contributed to this was, that the 
trade which the Northmen themselves carried on with 
Iceland became gradually, and in the fifteenth century was 
almost entirely, although illegally, transferred to the 
English, who under the guidance of their Scandinavian 
kinsmen had found their way thither. Hull and Bristol — 
which latter place is named as early as the twelfth century 
as the port for ships from Norway (and Iceland ?) — were the 
two English harbours whence this trade with Iceland was 
carried on. There are even some who think that Christo- 
pher Columbus during his stay in these harbours, through 
conversations with Iceland navigators, and possibly by a 
voyage to Iceland itself, obtained information of the ancient 
voyages of the Northmen to Greenland and America; 
and that he was thus first completely confirmed in his 
opinion, that a large and unknown continent must lie in 
the far west, across the Atlantic Ocean. But even if this 
supposition be unfounded, or destitute as yet of certain 



114 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. X. 

historical proof, may it not at least be probable that 
Columbus had heard in some other way of the Northmen's 
former voyages to Greenland; and that this might have 
had some influence on the resolution he afterwards formed 
to set out across the Atlantic on a voyage "of discovery 
towards the west? 

But under any circumstances, the regular voyages of the 
English to Iceland were certainly connected with the sub- 
sequent complete discovery of the New World. They had 
served to make them familiar with more extensive voyages 
on the open ocean, and thus essentially contributed to 
foster that daring Viking spirit, which they had inherited 
from their Scandinavian forefathers, and which in process 
of time was to become so important in cementing the con- 
nection between the Old and the New World. No sooner 
was the latter a second time discovered than the Vikings' 
spirit again strongly displayed itself in a renewed form 
among the English people. There was the same lofty 
tranquillity, the same daring and contempt of danger, 
that characterised the Vikings of ancient times. But the 
English seaman had now more experience and know- 
ledge, and quite other means were at his disposal than had 
ever before existed. He therefore entered on his first 
voyage to the New World with undaunted courage, and not 
only soon became familiar with that ocean which his 
Scandinavian forefathers had ploughed in the remote days 
of antiquity, but also opened a way to new lands over 
seas before unknown. Thus was established that mari- 
time supremacy which has been one of the most important 
props of the wealth and power of England. 

The first accidental discovery of America by bold ad- 
venturers from the remote north took place so early, 
and under such peculiar circumstances, that neither Scan- 
dinavia nor the rest of the world derived any use or benefit 
from it. After a transient glimpse, the golden treasure 
again sank beneath the waves. It lay, nevertheless, in 
the dispensations of Providence, that the descendants 



Sect. XI.] ART AND LITERATURE. 115 

of those Scandinavian adventurers should bear an es- 
sential part in raising the re-discovered treasure, and 
in making it productive for mankind. And had not the 
Scandinavians, by their numerous settlements in the 
British Islands, engrafted on the population a skill in sea- 
manship before unknown, together with a daring spirit of 
enterprise, England, in spite of its fertility, its wealth, 
and its favourable maritime situation, would scarcely have 
succeeded in solving such a problem as that of closely 
knitting together lands separated from each other by the 
Atlantic in all its breadth and vastness. 



Section XI. 
Art and Literature. 



At the period when the Danes were making their con- 
quests in the West, art and literature did not occupy any 
very high position in Europe. The severe shock which 
the fall of the Roman Empire had given to all the more 
elevated pursuits was still far from being overcome. 
Christian art was in its childhood, and groped its way with 
weak attempts, and imitations of Roman models ; whilst 
literature, confined for the most part to one-sided theo- 
logical inquiries, or to the inditing of dry and annalistic 
chronicles, could scarcely be said to deserve the name. 

It was, however, a natural result of the long-continued 
domiciliation of the Romans in France and England, where 
they founded so many and such important works, and 
where Christianity was adopted at a comparatively early 
period, that a taste for art and literature should develop 
itself in no mean degree in those countries ; particularly 
in comparison of the far North, where the Romans had never 
ruled, and where the darkness of heathenism still rested 
on the people. 

Nevertheless we should be grievously mistaken if we 



116 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XI. 

imagined that the Scandinavian people was at that time 
entirely unfitted for the ennobling occupations of art and 
literature. It has been before stated that the North- 
men early distinguished themselves not only by an 
extraordinary skill, for those times, in the art of ship- 
building, but that they had also developed, previously to the 
conquest of England, a taste, in some respects peculiar, 
in the manufacture of their ornaments, domestic utensils, 
and weapons, and which had principally sprung from cha- 
racteristic imitations of the Roman and Arabian articles of 
commerce brought into the North. The Scandinavian an- 
tiquities that are dug up, belonging to the older period, or 
what is called " the age of bronze," as well as those of 
the latest times of heathenism, or " the iron age," may on 
the whole, with regard to form and workmanship, be even 
ranked with contemporary objects of a similar kind manu- 
factured in England, France, or Germany. The Sagas, more- 
over, state that the carving of images was sometimes very 
skilfully practised in the North ; and the English chronicles, 
which depict in such glowing colours the splendidly-carved 
figures on the prows of the Danish or Scandinavian vessels* 
confirm the truth of these statements. InOlaf Paas' Hall, at 
Hjarderholdt, in Iceland, the walls were even adorned with 
whole rows of carvings, representing the ancient gods, and 
their exploits. On the other hand there could naturally 
as yet be no possibility of erecting such buildings in the 
North as those which the spirit of Christianity had already 
produced in other countries. 

But no sooner were the Normans from Denmark and 
Norway settled in Normandy, and converted to Christi- 
anity, than they began to manifest a lively desire to 
erect splendid buildings, and particularly churches and 
monasteries. Scarcely had the first violent revolutions in 
that country been brought to a close when there sprang up 
such a number of great architectural works among the 
Normans, that Normandy can still show more such monu- 
ments of art, of the eleventh century, than any other dis- 



Sect. XL] DANISH AND NORMAN ARCHITECTURE. 117 

trict of France. After William's conquest of England, 
the Normans also founded there a somewhat peculiar style 
of building, which, though only a branch of the Byzan- 
tine-Gothic, or a further development of the older Saxon, 
constantly bears in England the name of " Norman." 

Previous to the Norman conquest, the Danes settled in 
England were naturally unable to influence, in a like de- 
gree, the style of English architectural works. Their sway 
there was both too short and too unsettled for such a pur- 
pose : not to mention that the Danes had still much to 
learn from the Anglo-Saxons in the art of building; for 
the latter had long been Christians, and were besides 
settled in a country possessing abundant remains of the 
magnificent architectural works of the Romans. Never- 
theless it is not incredible that several of the many 
churches and convents then and subsequently erected by 
Danish princes and chiefs, and especially in the northern 
parts of England, but which are now for the most part either 
rebuilt, or have entirely disappeared, may have borne the 
stamp of their Scandinavian origin. We are led to this 
opinion by the ruling inclination manifested by the ancient 
Northmen to let their own conceptions pierce through, 
even in their imitations of foreign objects. Numerous and 
contemporary evidences in England itself also sufficiently 
prove to what a remarkable extent the Danes must have 
devoted themselves to peaceful occupations, long before the 
Norman conquest. In these, indeed, which relate to only 
a single branch of art, the Anglo-Saxons were their 
teachers ; still they will show that the Danes were neither 
wanting in a natural capacity for art, nor in faculty or will 
for its further development. 

It has been stated before that the Danes, previously to 
the conquest of England, were unacquainted with the art 
of coining money. At most they only imitated the By- 
zantine coins by fabricating the (so-called) " Bracteates, " 
which, however, were stamped only on one side, and were 
for the most part used merely as ornaments. But the art of 



] J 8 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XI. 

coining was very ancient in England. It was customary 
among the Anglo-Saxons for the coiners to put their 
names on the coins struck by them. The quantity of 
Anglo-Saxon coins that has in the course of time been 
found and examined, has afforded an opportunity for 
inspecting and comparing a considerable number of names 
of coiners in England, especially from the eighth and 
ninth centuries until far into the thirteenth. About Ed- 
ward the First's time, the names of the coiners were no 
longer suffered to occupy so conspicuous a place on the 
coins as previously. 

In the eighth and ninth centuries the names of these 
coiners are purely Anglo-Saxon. But in the tenth century, 
and especially after the year 950, pure Danish or Scandi- 
navian names begin to appear; for instance, Thurmod, 
Grim, under King Edgar (959-975) ; Rafn, Thurstan, 
under KingEdward (975-978); Ingolf, Hafgrim, and others. 
These Scandinavian names are more particularly found on 
coins minted in the northern part of England, or at all 
events in the districts that were early occupied by the 
Danes to the north-east of Watlinga Strset. But under 
King Ethelred the Second (979-1013), who contended so 
long with Svend Tveskjaeg and Canute the Great (and con- 
sequently, therefore, before the conquest of England by 
the Danes was completed), such a number of Scandinavian 
coiners arose all at once, in consequence of the rapidly-in- 
creasing power of the Danes, that the names of forty or 
fifty may be pointed out on coins of Ethelred alone that 
have been found in different parts of England. During 
the Danish dominion, Scandinavian names naturally appear 
no less frequently on the coins of Canute the Great and 
Harald Harefoot; nay, even after the fall of the Danish 
power, they are to be met with, in almost the same number 
as before, on coins of the Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the 
Confessor (+ a.d. 1066). 

The following table exhibits, from the coins themselves, 
a list of fifty names of Danish-Norwegian coiners in 



Sect. XI.] 



SCANDINAVIAN COINERS. 



119 



Fifty Names op Danish-Norwegian Coiners in England in the 
years 979-1066, chiefly from Hildebrand's " Anglo-Saxon 
Coins in the Royal Swedish Collection of Coins found on 
Swedish Ground." (Stockholm, 1846. 4to.) 





Ethelred 


Canute 


Harald 


Edward 
Confessor 

(+ 1066). 




(979-1013). 


(+ 1035). 


(+ 1040). 


Arncytel 


York 


York 




York 


Arngrim 




York 


York 


York 


Arnkil 






York, Stamford 


.... 


Arnthor 


York" 








Ascil 


London 








As, or Oscytel 


Exeter, London, 
Cambridge, 
York, 
Leicester 








As, or Oslac. . 




London, Lin- 
coln, Norwich 






Auti 








London, Lincoln 


Beorn (Bjorn) 




York " 


York 


York 


Cetel 


Exeter, York 


Exeter, York 




York 


Colgrim 


Lincoln, York 


Lincoln, York 


Lincoln, York 


Lincoln, York 


Dreng 


Lincoln 


Lincoln 






Eilaf 


York 








Eistan 






Winchester 




Escer 


Stamford 




Stamford 




Grim 

1 


Lincoln, Thet- 
ford 


Shrewsbury 






Grimcytel 




Lincoln 






1 Hardacnut . . 






Lincoln 




Huscarl 








Leicester 


Iric 




London 




Lincoln 


Jelmer (Hjal- 


mar. 










Justan.orJus- 




Lincoln 






tegen. 
Northman . . 






Lewes 




Othgrim .... 
'Othin 


Lincoln, York 


York'" 




Lincoln 




York 


York 


York 


Oustman, or 




York 


Winchester 




, Ustman. 










Rcefen(Ravn) 




York 






Rceienhold .. 


Lincoln 








Siafucl, Soe- 








York " 


i fuheL 










Scula 




Exeter, York 


York 


York 


;Stgncil (Ste - 
1 kil). 
Styrcar, Stir- 


Lincoln 








Lincoln, York 


York 






i ceir. 










Sumerled 


Deptford , Not- 
tingham, York, 
Lincoln 


Lincoln, Nor- 
wich 


Lincoln 


Lincoln 


,Swan 




York 






Swarti 




Leicester, Lin- 
coln 






Swartgar 


York, Stamford 








Sweartabrand 




Lincoln 


Lincoln 




Swegeu 


London, Lei- 
cester 


Leicester 






Thor 








York 


Thorald 


Leicester 








Thorcetel . . .„. 


Torksey, Lin- 
coln 


London, Tork- 
sey 






Thorstan 


York 


York, Stamford 




Norwich 


Thorulf 


Chester, York 




Stamford 


.... 


Thurcil 








Wilton 


Thurgrim... . 




York 


York"" 


York 


Ulfcetel 


York, Lincoln, 
Norwich 


London, Lincoln 




York 


V r alrefenn .... 






Lincoln 


Lincoln 


Widfara .... 






Ipswich 




Winterfugl . . 








York " 


, Wintrieda . . 


York'" 









120 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XI. 

England that appear most frequently from 979 to 1066 ; or 
in that period which embraced, as well as immediately pre- 
ceded and followed, the Danish dominion ; together with 
the names of the places in which the respective coins were 
minted. We must remember, besides, that there must have 
been several coiners of the same name at one and the 
same time. Thus, for instance, we find coins of Ethelred 
bearing the name of " As-" or " Oscytel," though minted 
in cities so far distant from one another as Exeter, London, 
Cambridge, Leicester, aud York. Again, as it is nowhere 
stated that " Arncytel," for instance, who was coiner in 
York under King Ethelred, was the same man as Edward 
the Confessor's coiner in that city, it is clear that the fifty 
names here given might very easily have belonged to 
ninety or a hundred different persons ; yet they are but a 
selection from a greater number. The same difficulty, 
however, occurs with these names as in the previous con- 
sideration of the Scandinavian names of places and of the 
popular language ; namely, that owing to the great simi- 
larity between the Saxon and Scandinavian tribes in an- 
cient times, it is often almost impossible to decide with 
certainty what is exclusively Saxon and what Scandinavian. 
But at all events, the annexed list contains, at most, hardly 
more than a couple of names that might have been current 
in Saxon England before the Danish conquests. 

Although this list cannot make any pretensions to com- 
pleteness, still it will prove, even in its present form, that 
these Scandinavian names exist on coins from places in the 
most distant parts of England, both south and north of 
Watlinga- Street ; as well as from those most essentially 
Anglo-Saxon cities, Exeter, Winchester, Wilton, Lewes, 
and London. From this last circumstance, some might, 
perhaps, contend that Scandinavian names were frequently 
borne by Anglo-Saxons, who in one way or another were 
related to the Danes ; and in this respect one might cite 
the instance of the Anglo-Saxon Earl Godwin, whose sons — 
possibly by a Danish wife — were called Harald and Svend ; 



Sect. XI.] SCANDINAVIAN COINERS. 121 

and it might consequently be argued, that the proof ad- 
duced from these Scandinavian names of the Danish ca- 
pacity for skill in art is not sufficiently conclusive. 

It cannot of course he denied that the Anglo-Saxons, in 
whose veins there was a mixture of Scandinavian blood, 
sometimes bore Scandinavian names. But as a rule, the 
names that have been cited must have belonged to Danes 
or Northmen, and their immediate descendants. It is well 
known that the Danes were settled everywhere in England, 
even in the southern cities, particularly those just cited ; 
and that, too, in considerable numbers : as, for instance, 
in Exeter, where in later times there was a St. Olave's 
Church ; in Winchester, which obtained a Scandinavian 
" Husting;" not to speak of London. This alone affords 
a natural explanation why Scandinavian coiners should be 
found in the south of England ; but we should further 
observe, that those names of coiners about which there 
might be most doubt are found to the north-east of 
Watlinga-Straet. The preceding tabular view will clearly 
prove that they occur especially in the old Danish 
part of England, in the five Danish fortified towns, and 
in York. The two cities, Lincoln and York, which, ac- 
cording to the statements of history, had, in the eleventh 
century, a very numerous, if not preponderating, Scandi- 
navian population, are remarkable for having the greatest 
number of coiners with Scandinavian names. Some of 
these names are so peculiarly Scandinavian, that we cannot 
without difficulty assume them to have been borne at that 
time by Anglo-Saxons. Such are " Othin " {Anglo-Saxon, 
Woden) and "Thor;" names that did not sound well in 
the ears of Christians : also " Northman " and " Ustman," 
or " Ostman," by which the Anglo-Saxons designated the 
Norwegians and Danes, who came from the North and 
East. " Ostman," especially, was an appellation commonly 
given by the inhabitants of the British Isles in those times 
to the Scandinavian tribes that dwelt to the east of them. 

Among other names, those of " Colgrim" and " Valrefenn " 

G 



122 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XI. 

may be noticed as frequently appearing, and as peculiar to 
Lincolnshire, a district occupied in such great numbers 
by the Danes. Names of birds appear on the whole to have 
been often assumed in the old Danish part of England. 
Thus in York we find a " Bsefn," or " Ravn " (Haven) ; 
" Siafucl," " Ssefuhel," or " Sofugl " (Seafowl) ; " Swan " 
or "Svane" (Swan); and " Winterfugl" (Winterfowl). 
Strangely enough, there also appears a " Sumrfugl " 
(Summer-fowl) as the name of a coiner, who minted coins 
for the Danish-Norwegian king Magnus the Good, in 
Odensee ; and as English coiners were at that time em- 
ployed in Denmark, this Sommerfugl perhaps came over 
from the north of England. It. was, indeed, quite natural 
that Denmark and the rest of the North should procure 
their earliest coiners from Danish North-England, where 
there were plenty of them of Scandinavian origin. The 
English names found on the oldest Scandinavian coins 
(of the first half of the eleventh century) are consequently 
by no means universally Anglo-Saxon, but often Scandina- 
vian; as Svein, Thorbaern(Thorbjorn), Ketil, Thorkil, Othin, 
Thorstein, Thurgod, Thord, and others. It is remarkable, 
that the names of " Sumerled" and " Winterled," answering 
to those of Sommerfugl and Winterfugl, were also found at 
that time in York. Another remarkable name is that of 
"Widfara" (the far-travelled), which seems to indicate 
either that its bearer had come from a great distance, or had 
made long voyages. 

These Scandinavian names, which, as I have said, are just 
as frequent on coins minted immediately after, as on those 
struck during, or just previously to, the Danish-English 
kings' dominion, by no means cease with Edward the Con- 
fessor (+ 1066). During Harald Godvinson's short reign, 
we further meet with Outhgrim, Snaebeorn (or Sneeb- 
jorn), Spraceling (Sprakeleg), Thurcil, Ulfcetel, &c; nay, 
even after the Norman conquest, and as long as it was 
customary to place the coiners' names on the coins, Scan- 
dinavian names may be recognised. Thus, under William 



Sect. XL] SCANDINAVIAN COINERS. 123 

the Conqueror ( + 1087) we find Colsvegen, Thor, Thur- 
grim, Jestan (Jostein or Eistein, Justan and Justegen), 
Siword, Thorstan; under Henry the First (1100-1135), 
Chitel (Ketil), Runcebi (Rynkeby), Spracheling, Winterled; 
under Stephen (+ 1154), Ericus, Siward, and Svein ; and 
under Henry the Second (+ 1189), Achetil (Asketil), 
Colbrand, Elaf, Raven, Svein, Thurstan, and others. A 
great number of these names appear in connection with 
towns in the north of England ; and we have thus a new 
and instructive proof that the remarkable influence of the 
Danish element in England, and especially in the northern 
part, before the Norman conquest, was not entirely lost 
after that conquest had long been completely effected. 

Considering the distant period in which the Danish 
conquests in England fall, it is fortunate that we can 
obtain so many palpable evidences of the state of domestic 
civilization as these coins afford ; and more will assuredly 
follow from the discovery of others hitherto unknown. 
These coins prove much, and justify us in inferring still 
more. They place, as it were, before our eyes, the 
earnestness with which the Danish Vikings, and the rest 
of the colonists in England, must have applied themselves 
shortly after their settlement, to rival the Saxons in art, 
and to retrieve what they had neglected in this respect. 
In like manner, there is every reason to believe that they 
must have devoted themselves with no less zeal to other 
peaceful occupations which they had already cultivated in 
their own native homes ; and that thus they must have 
also preserved and cherished in England, both in war and 
peace, that love for poetry and history, which flourished in 
the homes of their ancient forefathers, and which, on the 
whole, harmonized so completely with the heroic life of the 
olden times in the North. It was not natural that the 
deep desire which filled the Northman to enjoy posthu- 
mous fame in chronicles, and in the songs of the poets — 
which left him no peace at home, but drove him out to sea 
on daring expeditions — should immediately desert him 

g 2 



124 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XI. 

because he had removed to a foreign soil. It is expressly 
related of the Normans that they cherished eloquence and 
poetry in a high degree, and that they were accustomed to 
entertain their guests with songs and legends. Scandina- 
vian bards, especially from Iceland, continued to visit the 
Scandinavian colonists in France, as well as in the British 
Isles. As court-minstrels, they were in constant atten- 
dance upon the Scandinavian princes in Scotland, Ireland, 
and England. Their office partly was, to entertain the 
warriors with lays of past exploits in the North; and, 
partly, to accompany the chiefs on their warlike expedi- 
tions ; that they might, as eye-witnesses, be able to sing 
their heroic deeds, and by these lays convey to the 
North a knowledge of what passed among the Scandina- 
vian colonists in the western regions. When we add 
that the Scandinavian kings, as, for instance, Canute the 
Great himself, practised at times the art of poetry, it will 
be easily perceived in what high honour the bard and his 
lays must have been held. 

But it lay in the nature of things that a pure Scandina- 
vian poetry could not grow up either among the Normans 
in France, or their Danish kinsmen in England. For the 
development of such a poetry it was necessary that they 
should preserve their Scandinavian nationality intact. 
But it is well known, that a foreign education and re- 
finement soon caused them to abandon their belief in Odin, 
as well as many of the habits and customs which they had 
inherited from their forefathers. Of the change that 
took place in them nothing bears stronger evidence than 
their mother tongue, which, by degrees, lost more and 
more of its characteristics, and at length passed entirely 
into the modern French and English languages. 

The old predilection for poetry which the Normans 
brought with them from the North, was reflected in many 
ways in their foreign refinement. Of all France, Normandy 
was the country where most historical and warlike songs 
were heard. The Normans sang them in battle, and de- 



Sect. XI.] SCANDINAVIAN POETRY. 125 

rived from them a sort of inspiration. Before the battle 
of Hastings, William the Conqueror's bard, Taillefer, 
recited songs about Charlemagne, Roland, and others, to 
the Norman host, to cheer and enliven the warriors after 
the old Scandinavian fashion; just as Thormod Kol- 
brunaskjald, before the battle of Stiklestad, in Norway, 
(1030), sang the far-famed Bjarkemaal. When the poetry 
of the Troubadours of Provence began to spread it- 
self throughout France, it found another home in Nor- 
mandy; where it so peculiarly developed itself, that the 
French troubadour poetry is generally divided into two 
principal kinds, the " Provencal " and the " Norman." 
Even in Italy, where the Normans conquered fresh king- 
doms, their peculiar poetry had a perceptible and important 
influence on the development of the art. 

In England, likewise, there arose, partly as a conse- 
quence of the Danish and Norman conquests, a particular 
kind of composition which, in England, is called Anglo- 
Danish and Anglo-Norman. That all poems of this sort 
were written by Danes or Normans, I do not venture to 
assert. All that is meant is, that they were partly pro- 
duced by the Danish and Norman wars ; and that, partly, 
they were the expressions of the new adventurous and 
knightly spirit, which, through the Danish-Normanic con- 
quests, became prevalent in England. Some of the most 
celebrated of them are romances about "Beowulf," "Have- 
lock the Dane," and " Guy, Earl of Warwick." In the 
oldest romances, which are composed of the same mythic 
materials as our Scandinavian Edda songs, and some of the 
Sagas or legends, adventurous combats against dragons, 
serpents, and similar plagues, are celebrated ; whereas, in 
the later romances of the age of chivalry, warriors are sung 
who had fallen in love with beautiful damsels far above 
them in birth or rank, and whose hand and heart they 
could acquire only by a series of brilliant adventures and 
exploits. Valour, which before was exerted for the wel- 
fare of all, and for the honour that accompanied it, now ob- 



126 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XI. 

tained a new object and a new reward, and that was — love. 
The heathen poems of the Scandinavian North are all con- 
ceived in the selfsame spirit ; and it is therefore not alto- 
gether unreasonable, perhaps, to recognise in this striking 
agreement traces of a Scandinavian influence on English 
compositions. In later times, and down to the middle ages, 
this influence is still more clearly apparent in the before- 
mentioned ballads, or popular songs (p. 89), which are 
only to be found in the northern, or old Danish, part of 
England, and which betray such a striking likeness to our 
Scandinavian national ballads. 

The Danes in England do not appear to have occupied 
themselves with any compositions that can be properly 
called historical; at all events all remains of such com- 
position have disappeared. It is related of the contemporary 
Normans in France, that, down to the days of William the 
Conqueror, they devoted themselves more to war than to 
reading and writing. This, however, is not surprising, 
since even the Anglo-Saxon clergy in Alfred the Great's 
time, according to that monarch's own statement, were so 
ignorant and so unaccustomed to literary occupations, that 
exceedingly few of them could read the daily prayers in 
English, much less translate a Latin letter. Even if we 
should admit that the Danes in England, by reason of 
their earlier and more extended settlements there, had 
somewhat better opportunities for study than the Normans 
in Normandy, still there is not sufficient ground to suppose 
that they wrote any other chronicles than such dry annals 
as some few monks, and other learned men of that time, 
composed. The reason of this seems partly to have been 
because they preferred preserving the remembrance of 
important events in historical lays ; and partly, because 
neither their national nor political development could pro- 
ceed in a foreign land with such freedom from all ad- 
mixture, and in such tranquillity, as to allow of more im- 
portant historical works, and especially in their mother 
tongue, being produced among them. 



Sect. XII.] ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 127 

In Iceland, on the contrary, where a great number 
of the most powerful and shrewdest of the heathens of 
Norway sought, after the year 870, a refuge against spiri- 
tual and political oppression, and where they founded a 
republic which retained its independence for centuries, the 
Scandinavian spirit obtained a free field. Not only did 
the old bardic lays, and the remembrance of the deeds of 
former times, continue to live among the Icelandic people, 
but new bards arose in numbers, who, spreading them- 
selves over the whole north of Europe, returned " with their 
breasts full of Sagas." There also speedily arose in Iceland, 
immediately after the Viking expeditions, and altogether 
independently of any external influence, an historical Saga 
literature in the old Scandinavian tongue, which, viewed 
by itself, is, from its simplicity and elevation, extremely 
remarkable, but which, when compared with the contempo- 
rary dry Latin monkish chronicles and annals in the rest 
of Europe, is truly astonishing. The Edda songs, the 
purely historical Sagas, the historical novels, and other pecu- 
liarly bold and original productions of the Icelandic litera- 
ture, in an age when the European mind was singularly 
contracted, form, in the intellectual world, manifestations 
of the same thorough individual freedom, which stamped 
itself on the arms, endeavours, and whole life of the hea- 
then Northman. 



Section XII. 

Ecclesiastical and Secular Aristocracy. 

The supposition that the Danes in England devoted them- 
selves to study both earlier, and to a greater extent, than 
the Normans in France, is not founded only on loose con- 
jectures. The English chronicles of the earlier middle 
ages contain traces of the Danes having not unfrequently 
entered into the English Church, in which they some 



128 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIL 

times obtained the highest preferment. On this point 
we still possess an important source of information, which 
has, besides, the advantage of being for the most part 
contemporary with the events and circumstances which it 
elucidates. This consists of a considerable quantity of 
letters and diplomas issued by kings, bishops, and other lead- 
ing men in England, from about the year 600 to 1066. 
These documents, which have lately been collected and 
published by a gentleman celebrated for historical research, 
Mr. J. M. Kemble, (under the title of " Codex Diplomati- 
cs iEvi Saxonici," vol. i.-vi., London, 1839-1848, 8vo,) 
more especially regard the southern and midland parts of 
England, as unfortunately the greater part of the letters 
relating to the north of England are lost. Nevertheless, 
those that remain, taken in conjunction with the chronicles, 
afford valuable information, both respecting the Danish 
clergy in the south-east of England, and their diffusion 
throughout that country. 

Tn the centre of the east coast of England, in Lincoln- 
shire, and near the Wash, stood in the Anglo-Saxon times 
the large and famous convent of Croyland, or Crowland, 
dedicated to St. Guthlac. It was built upon an island, 
and so protected on the land side by the vast morasses 
which in those times covered the districts nearest the 
Wash, that it was a sort of natural fortress. According 
to the chronicles of the convent, compiled by one of the 
abbots in the eleventh century, it was governed, shortly 
after the year 800, by an abbot of the name of Sivard ; 
in whose time there is also mentioned in the convent a 
priest (presbyter) named " Turstan," and a monk "Eskil" 
(Askillus monachus). In the same ancient chronicle are also 
recorded several deeds of gift, which possibly, with regard 
to the rights conveyed to the convent, may have been 
forgeries of the times, but which, at all events, so far as 
regards the names of persons and places mentioned in 
them, must be perfectly correct and trustworthy ; since 
incorrectness in these particulars would have easily led to 



Sect. XII.] CONVENT OF CEOYLAND. 129 

the discovery of the intended frauds. These deeds mention, 
between the years 800 and 868, amongst the benefactors 
of the convent, three viscounts in Lincolnshire, " Thorold" 
(or Thurold), "Norman," and "Sivard;" and also 
" Grymketil " and " Asketellus " (or Asketil), who was 
cook to the Mercian king Viglaf. Lastly there appear 
(particularly in the year 833) the following names of 
places: — Langtoft, Asuuiktoft, Gernthorp, Holbeck, Pynce- 
bek, Laithorp, Badby, and Kyrkeby. 

The names of persons in the convent, and of places about 
it, here cited are all, perhaps, or at most with a single 
exception, of undoubted Danish or Scandinavian origin. 
They not only prove that, even long before the treaty 
between Alfred the Great and the Viking King Gudrum 
or Gorm, which in the year 879 secured to the Danes 
their conquests on the south-east coast of England, and 
therefore, more than one hundred and fifty years before 
Canute the Great's time, the Danes really had such a 
footing round the Wash that they could give their villages 
Danish names, and were governed by their own chiefs; 
but they likewise indicate the remarkable fact, that at 
least a great number of these Danes must have been 
already Christians, since they had villages with churches 
(Kyrkeby) and gave landed property to a convent, in 
which we find both Danish monks (Eskil and Thurstan), 
and a Danish abbot (Sivard.) It was about the same 
time that the Jutland king, Harald Klag, was baptized, 
together with his whole suite, during a sojourn with the 
Emperor Ludvig, at Tngelheim, near Mayence, in the 
year 826. This christening of Danish men abroad, in 
Germany and England, was the beginning of the subse- 
quent introduction of Christianity into the Scandinavian 
North. 

The genuineness of the above-mentioned Scandinavian 
names, is placed beyond all doubt by the circumstance that 
similar names appear in other documents connected with the 
history of Croyland at the same period, or the ninth century. 

o 3 



130 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

In the year 867, swarms of Danish-Norwegian Vikings 
landed on the east coast of England, and the Christians 
who then lived there, whether Danes or Anglo-Saxons, as 
well as their churches and convents, suffered from the 
ferocity of these heathens. After a great battle in Lin- 
colnshire, in which, however, the heathens lost three of 
their kings, whom they buried in a place afterwards called 
" Trekyngham " (the three kings' home), they marched 
against Croyland. In vain did the Christians seek to 
arrest their progress. In a battle near the convent many 
of the Christians fell, and amongst them " Toli " or 
" Tule," who had previously been a knight, but who had 
now entered the cloisters of Croyland. The Vikings 
stormed the convent, and committed a terrible massacre. 
Their king, " Oskytyl," cut down the abbot before the 
altar ; after which the convent was plundered and destroyed. 
The Danish Viking Jarl Sidroc, or Sigtryg, saved a boy 
called Turgar (Thorgeir) from this massacre, who after- 
wards escaped to the neighbouring convent of Ely, and 
gave an account, which is still preserved, of this terrible 
devastation. Meanwhile, however, the convent of Ely, 
as well as that of Medehamstede (Peterborough), was 
plundered and destroyed by the Vikings. 

Amongst the monks then killed in Croyland, we may 
cite from the chronicle, the prior, Asker, and the friars 
Grimketulus (G-rimketil) and Agamundus (Amund); and 
among the few saved, Sveinus or Svend : — names which, 
not less than Tule and Thorgeir, indicate a Danish ori- 
gin. Men of Danish extraction continued in the following 
centuries to play a considerable part in the history of this 
and of the neighbouring convents. A Dane named " Thur- 
stan " is said to have rebuilt that of Ely ; and another man 
of Danish family, " Turketul " (Thorketil), certainly re- 
built Croyland. Thorketil, who (it is stated) was nearly 
related to the royal Saxon family, had previously distin- 
guished himself both as a warrior and statesman. In the 
battle of Brunanborg he commanded the citizens of Lon- 



Sect. XII.] CONVENT OF CROTLAND. 131 

don who were in Athelstane's army, and during a long 
series of years was chancellor to several kings. Subse- 
quently, however, he took the vows of the convent, and 
governed Croyland with honour, as abbot, till his death 
in the year 975. 

It is, indeed, very striking to observe how many abbots of 
Danish origin governed the convent of Croyland from the 
ninth to the twelfth century. Sivard and Thorketil have 
been already mentioned. Thorketil was succeeded by two of 
his relations, both named Egelrik ; and after the death of 
the last of these in 992, followed an abbot with the pure 
Danish or Scandinavian name of " Oscytel." This Asketil 
had long been prior of Croyland before he became its 
abbot, which he continued to be till his death in the year 
1005. To what extent Asketil's immediate successors 
were Danes is at least very uncertain, as they have Anglo- 
Saxon names. During the invasions of the Danish kings', 
however, the convent was at times suspected of being 
in league with the Danes. Canute the Great is said to 
have presented a chalice, and his son Hardicanute his 
coronation mantle, to Croyland. Other Danes also made 
similar gifts to that convent. In the year 1053 it again 
had an abbot with the Danish name of Ulf ketil (Wulke- 
tulus) ; and, what is very significant, after the Norman 
conquest, the swampy districts round it became places 
of refuge for the Danes and Anglo-Saxons who had 
in vain fought the last battle for freedom against the 
victorious and advancing Norman conquerors. One of the 
chief leaders in this battle was the Jarl Valthiof, a son of 
the far-famed Danish Jarl, Sivard Digre (Eng. Sivard the 
Stout) of Northumberland. Valthiof, it is expressly stated, 
was one of Croyland's best benefactors and protectors. 
Subsequently he made his peace with William, but was 
at last executed by that monarch's directions, and imme- 
diately buried at Winchester. Nevertheless the abbot 
Ulfketil, together with his monks, obtained permission to 
convey Valthiof 's body to Croyland, where many miracles 



132 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIL 

were soon performed at the shrine of the innocent and 
murdered martyr of freedom. Exasperated probably by 
this, as well as by the refuge which their opponents found 
in and about Croyland, the Normans inflicted many calami- 
ties on it, and at length deposed the abbot Ulfketil. He 
was succeeded by an Englishman with the Scandinavian 
name of " Ingulf," to whom we are indebted for having 
indited the ancient chronicles of the convent. 

The close connection of Croyland with the Danes, as 
well as its Danish monks and abbots, was a natural 
consequence of the convent's being situated in Lincoln- 
shire, a part of England which was pretty nearly the 
earliest and most numerously occupied by them. Satis- 
factory reasons certainly exist even to justify us in 
calling this convent peculiarly a Danish one. In conse- 
quence of its size and importance, it is highly probable 
that it was one of the principal places whence the Danish 
settlers in England derived their civilization. In this 
manner Croyland answers in England to the convent 
of Bee in Normandy (from the Danish Baek, a small 
rivulet), founded by the Northmen, and afterwards very 
celebrated; which also seems to have been one of the 
most important nurseries for the diffusion of a higher 
Christian and intellectual cultivation among the Scandina- 
vian colonists in Normandy. 

The very remarkable evidence which the history of 
Croyland affords of the Christianity of the Danes in Eng- 
land so early as the ninth century, is, however, by no 
means solitary. Before the treaty concluded between 
Gorm (Gudrum) and Alfred in the year 879, the former 
had already been converted, and received at his baptism 
the name of Athelstane. In a somewhat later treaty con- 
cluded by the same King Gorm with Alfred's successor 
Edward, it is assumed that there must long have been 
Christians among the Danes settled in East Anglia, and 
that they had at all events allowed the ecclesiastical insti- 
tutions to exist unmolested among them. In the year 



Sect. XII.] DANISH CLERGY. 133 

890 there was in Northumberland a king called Guthred 
(Gutfred, Godfred ?), a son of the Danish king Hardica- 
nute, of whom it is stated that he extended the bishopric 
of Durham, and conferred on it considerable rights and 
privileges, which even at the present day distinguish that 
see above all others in England. The coins of Danish- 
Norwegian kings minted in the north of England in the 
ninth and first half of the tenth century (as mentioned at 
p. 49), also indicate an early conversion to Christianity ; 
as they show both the cross, and frequently also parts of 
the Christian legend : " Dominus, dominus, omnipotens 
rex mirabilia fecit;" or, "The Lord, the Lord, the Al- 
mighty King, hath performed wonderful things." 

About the year 940, Christianity must, on the whole, 
have had a firm footing among the Northumbrian Danes. 
It would otherwise be inexplicable how, in the wars which 
Edmund waged at that time with the Danish king Anlaf, 
or Olaf, in Northumberland, even the Archbishop of York, 
" Wulfstan," should have sided with the Danes against the 
Anglo-Saxons. Wulfstan subsequently, in the year 943, 
negotiated a peace between Olaf and Edmund, whereby the 
latter ceded the country east of Watlinga- Street to Olaf. 
In this treaty a great man, of Danish extraction, took 
part on the Anglo-Saxon side; namely, Odo, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, whose father was a Dane who had fought 
in the host of the Vikings against Alfred the Great. One 
might almost be led to believe that Wulfstan himself was 
of Danish origin, and that his name was only the Anglo- 
Saxon form of the Scandinavian " Ulfsteen." For under 
King Edmund's successor, Edred, we again find the Arch- 
bishop, together with his clergy, paying homage to the 
Danish king's son, Erik (son of Harald Blaatand?), al- 
though he had shortly before, in common with the Northum- 
brians, taken an oath of fidelity to the Anglo-Saxon king. 
After the murder of Erik, King Edred caused the Arch- 
bishop to be deposed and thrown into prison ; but after- 



134 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

wards gave him the bishopric of Dorchester, though far 
removed from the Danish possessions. 

Another argument in favour of the Danish extraction of 
Bishop Wulfstan (or Ulfsteen) is, that several of his suc- 
cessors in the archbishopric were undoubtedly Danish; 
which shows that in those days such men were chiefly 
elevated to that dignity, as, through their common de- 
scent and kinsmanship, possessed an influence over the 
Danish population in Northumberland ; where, also, there 
was doubtless a great body of Danish clergy. Contem- 
porary with Abbot Thorketil, a certain " Oscetel," or 
Osketil, is also named as churchwarden (circevserd) in the 
King's letters-patent in the year 949; probably the same 
Osketil who, between the years 955 and 970, constantly 
signed the King's letters as Archbishop of York. As Odo, 
the Danish Archbishop of Canterbury, lived long after 
Osketil had become Archbishop of York, we are thus pre- 
sented, half a century before the reign of Canute the Great, 
with the singular spectacle of the two chief ecclesiastics 
of England, the Archbishops of Canterbury and Y'ork, 
being both of Danish extraction. Oscytel's successor in 
the archiepiscopal see of York was also a Danish man, 
although he bore the Anglo-Saxon name of Oswald. He 
was both nearly related to Oscytel (his " nepos "), and, 
moreover, a brother's son of Archbishop Odo: conse- 
quently descended in a direct line from the Danish Viking, 
Odo's father. This Archbishop Oswald published some 
laws for the Northumbrian clergy which are still extant, 
and in which, according to Danish custom, fines are com- 
puted in marks and ore; whilst in the rest of England they 
were reckoned in pounds and shillings. 

As these facts lead us to suppose that, at that time, 
a great part of the inferior clergy in England must 
have been of Danish extraction, and particularly in Danish 
North and East England ; it thus becomes still clearer 
that the English priests or missionaries, with Scandi- 



Sect. XII.] DANISH CLEEGY. 3 35 

navian names — as, for instance, Eskild, Grimkild, and 
Sigurd — who went over to Scandinavia in the tenth cen- 
tury for the purpose of converting the heathens, were, as 
their names show, of Danish origin, and undoubtedly natives 
of the Danish part of England. Sprung from Scandinavian 
families, which, though settled in a foreign land, could 
scarcely have so soon forgotten their mother tongue, or the 
customs which they had inherited, they could enter with 
greater safety than other priests on their dangerous prose- 
lytizing travels in the heathen North; where, also, from 
their familiarity with the Scandinavian language, they were 
manifestly best suited successfully to prepare the entrance 
of Christianity. 

The rapid accession of the Danes to the highest eccle- 
siastical offices in England must satisfactorily convince 
every impartial person how carefully we should discrimi- 
nate between the Danish or Scandinavian Vikings, who, 
only for a certain period, robbed and plundered, and the 
Danish colonists, who, from the beginning of the ninth 
century were settled down — particularly in the east and 
north of England — as peaceful Christian citizens ; and 
whose sons soon became sufficiently accomplished and 
respected to fill the highest places among the already 
powerful ecclesiastical aristocracy of England. Nor should 
it be forgotten, that the Danes in England, who, though 
fewer in number than the natives, yet aimed at the supreme 
authority, were early obliged to apply themselves to study, 
and to permit their sons to enter the clerical order ; for, 
the greater the influence they could acquire among the 
clergy, who at that time held a very large share of power, 
the stronger and more secure would their position become 
in the land of their adoption. 

After having had, at least, three archbishops of Danish 
family during the tenth century, it is not surprising that 
in the following one the English clergy had lost a great 
deal of their horror for the Danes, and were so willing to 
do homage to the Danish conqueror, Canute the Great, in 



136 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

preference to any prince of Anglo-Saxon descent. Nor 
did Canute betray their confidence. He conformed to their 
manners, and built churches and convents, whilst his fol- 
lowers imitated his example. Under such a state of 
things the English clergy must have become still more 
mixed with Danes. In Canute's time the royal letters 
are signed by the abbots " Oscytel" (1020-1023) and 
" Siuuard" (in Abingdon, Berkshire); as also by " Grim- 
kytel," bishop in Essex; and under Hardicanute, by 
"Sivard" and "Grimkytel" as well as by the diaconus 
Thurkil. Even long after the fall of the Danish power, 
as, for instance, in Edward the Confessor's time, we still 
meet with many high dignitaries of the church, with Scan- 
dinavian names ; such as the abbots Sivard, Sihtric, 
Uvi or Ove, abbot of St. Edmundsbury, in East Anglia, 
and Brand; who was also abbot of a convent on the east 
coast, namely Peterborough, close to Croyland. We further 
have Sitric, chaplain to the Bishop of Dorchester, and 
lastly the Kentish bishop, Siward. William the Conqueror's 
Doomsday Book likewise mentions several such Danish 
clergymen; for instance, in the old Danish city of Lincoln, 
the priests " Siuuard" and Aldene or Haldan. In St. 
Edmundsbury there was still later (L157) a Danish abbot 
named Hugo. 

The secular nobility, or chiefs, were closely connected 
with the high church dignitaries of that time. The royal 
letters before mentioned also show, that whilst the Danes 
succeeded in placing men of their own race amongst the 
highest clergy in England, they likewise procured admit- 
tance into the ranks of the nobility, and even into the 
suite that surrounded the Anglo-Saxon kings themselves. 
This happened not only from the Danish chiefs frequently 
entering the service of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and often 
marrying among the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy; but still more 
from the circumstance, that certain districts became in 
time so strongly occupied by the Danes, as to fall under 
Danish chieftains ; and consequently the Anglo-Saxon 



Sect. XII.] DANISH NOBILITY. 137 

kings, inasmuch as they held dominion over su$i dis- 
tricts, were compelled to take these chiefs into their court 
and councils. History informs us that the Danish kings 
Halvdan and Gudrum divided the districts they had con- 
quered in Northumbria and East Anglia among their 
followers, and thus formed there, at an early period, a 
resident and wealthy Danish aristocracy. 

It has been before shown that, so early as the ninth cen- 
tury, Lincolnshire had had at least three Shire-greves 
(Sheriffs), or earls of the shire, of Danish or Scandinavian 
extraction; viz., Thurold, Norman, and Sivard. In the 
ninth century, indeed, as well as in the first part of the 
tenth, the Danish possessions in England were almost 
entirely independent of the Anglo-Saxon kings. It was 
at this period that the Danish- Norwegian kings in the dis- 
tricts north-east of Watlinga- Street minted, as inde- 
pendent sovereigns, the many coins before described. 
There could not, consequently, have then existed 
in the courts of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs so many 
Danish chiefs, or vassals, as when those monarchs sub- 
sequently began to acquire dominion over the previously 
more independent Danish kingdoms. Thus, among the 
regular followers of King Athelstane (925-941), who sub- 
dued the Danish kingdoms in England, we find, even 
before his successful expeditions into the North, not a few 
Danish-Norwegian chiefs, who signed diplomas in con- 
junction with him, and particularly during the years 929 
to 931 ; namely, besides the Thane " Syeweard " (his 
minister), the Jarls Urm, Gudrum, Healden or Halfdene, 
Inhwaer (Ingvard), Rengwald, Hadder, Haward, Scule, and 
Gunner. This may, perhaps, partly confirm the state- 
ment of the chronicles, that Athelstane availed himself 
of Danish warriors to suppress rebellion in his kingdom. 
It is expressly stated that, at the battle of Brunan- 
borg (treated of at p. 34), there were Scandinavian war- 
riors in his army; and, among the rest, two Iceland 
brothers, namely, Thorolf, who fell in the battle, and the 



138 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

bard, or scald, Egil Skallegrimsen, who stayed for some 
time with King Athelstane, by whom he was presented 
with rich gifts for his lays. It is by no means improbable 
that Egil entertained, with his songs, the Scandinavian 
chiefs then at King Athelstane 's court. 

Between the years 940 and 960, several of the above- 
named Jarls, as Gunner, Scule, Haldan, and Urm, toge- 
ther with Grim and the chiefs, or ministers, Thurkytel 
and Thurmod, continued to sign the Anglo-Saxon letters- 
patent, in conjunction with their countrymen or relatives, 
the Abbot Thurcytel, and Oscytel, Archbishop of York. 
At this time the Latin title " dux " varies alternately 
with the Scandinavian title of Jarl, which the Anglo- 
Saxons called " Eorl." 

With King Edgar's reign (959-975) began a fortunate 
epoch for the Danish dominion in England. Edgar him- 
self was educated among the Danes in East Anglia, under 
the care of his relative, Alfwena, dowager queen of the 
converted Viking king, Gudrum, or Gorm. Hence he 
had early conceived such a partiality for the Danes, that 
during his reign he was accused of showing too much 
favour to those foreigners at the expense of the natives. 
It was in his time that the two highest ecclesiastics in 
England, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, were 
men of Danish extraction ; and to judge from the diplomas 
issued by him, he must certainly have been served by 
several Scandinavians ; for instance (959), by the Jarl 
Oscytel, and by the Thanes (or ministers) Ulf kytel, Bold, 
and Thurkytel. Thored, or Thured, a son of the before - 
mentioned Danish jarl, Gunner, is likewise named in the 
chronicles as one of Edgar's most trusted chiefs. 

The Scandinavian, or Danish aristocracy had now gra- 
dually taken such deep root in England, that Ethelred 
the Second, who can scarcely have favoured the Danes, 
since he was repeatedly forced by their kings, Svend and 
Canute, to fly his kingdom, was even unable to remove 
the Danish chiefs from about his person, and to put in 



Sect. XII.] DANISH NOBILITY. 139 

their places Anglo- Saxons of unmixed descent. In the 
first years of his reign there were in his suite, as the 
letters-patent show, several chiefs with Scandinavian 
names; as the Jarl Nordman, and the thanes Ulfkytel, 
Siweard, Wolfeby, and Styr, as well as the knights (mi- 
lites) Ulfkytel and Thurcytel; whence it is clear that 
there must have been several chiefs of the same name at 
one and the same time in his court, and particularly of 
the names of Ulfkytel and Siweard. Nay, Ethelred him- 
self was united, in first marriage, with a queen of Danish 
descent ; namely, Elfleda, a daughter of the Danish chief 
Thured, Jarl Gunner's son. By this at least semi- 
Danish queen, he had several children, and amongst them 
a son, who afterwards became the renowned Edmund 
Ironsides. According to the chronicles, many powerful 
Danes had now obtained large fiefs even in the southern 
and western parts of England ; as, for instance, the Jarl 
Paling, who was married to Gunhilde, a sister of the 
Danish king, Svend Tveskjaeg, and who had extensive 
fiefs in Devonshire. This Paling, or Paine, however, to 
judge from the name, was probably the celebrated Scan- 
dinavian hero Palnetoke, whose possessions are said to 
have lain in that district. 

The Danes were now so spread over the whole of 
England, that the Danish invaders were sure of finding 
support in almost every corner of it ; and Ethelred con- 
sequently saw that, if their power was not crushed at 
once, the Anglo-Saxon dominion was threatened with im- 
minent ruin. But it was too late. The secret massacre 
planned by him in the year 1002 was far from sufficing 
to annihilate, even in South England, the numerous traces 
of Danish influence ; and to North England, as is well 
known, it did not extend. Even after the slaughter, we 
continue to find in the royal letters-patent nearly the 
same Scandinavian names of chiefs as before : such as 
Siward, Styr, Ulfkytel, Nordman, and the knights Ulf- 



140 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

kytel and Thurkytel. The Icelandic scald, or bard, Gun- 
laug Ormstunge, also remained some time afterwards with 
Ethelred, just as Egil Skallegrimsen had before resided 
at the court of King Edgar, a monarch favourably dis- 
posed towards the Danes. The old chronicles also men- 
tion a powerful chief of Danish extraction who was in 
Ethelred's army after the massacre. This was Thorketil, 
surnamed Myrehoved (Ant-head) ; and, according to the 
same chronicles, a Dane named Ulf ketil Snilling, sheriff 
or earl in East-Anglia, was even married to Ethelred's 
own daughter Ulf hilde ! 

Thus, even before the conquest by Canute the Great, 
Danish families had frequently ingrafted themselves on 
the families of the Anglo-Saxon nobility ; nay, even on 
the royal family itself. After that conquest the line of 
demarcation between the Danes and Anglo-Saxons cannot 
have been so strongly drawn as is generally imagined. 
Thus the descriptions given in the Sagas of the bold chiefs 
of the heathen North, as being also shrewd, amiable, and 
eloquent men, gain more and more credibility; and we 
cannot help admiring the ability and manliness which 
enabled the heathen Danish chiefs, and their immediate 
Christian successors, to maintain their difficult position 
against a hostile aristocracy, and, in spite of it, gradually 
to extend their power in the very midst of Anglo-Saxon 
England. Nay, they not only maintained their ground as 
the equals of the Anglo-Saxons, but soon became their 
superiors. The weakness and depravity of the Anglo- 
Saxon nobles under the reign of Ethelred were the best 
proof that their day was past. Faintheartedness, border- 
ing very closely on cowardice, want of union, treachery, 
and every other vice, reigned no less among the chiefs 
than among their dependents. Luxury and effeminacy 
had usurped the place of the old Anglo-Saxon simplicity and 
vigour. Scarcely any great men appeared among them, 
notwithstanding the urgent need that there was for 



Sect. XII.] EFFECTS OF CANUTES CONQUEST. 141 

such characters. Even the greatest of their few warriors, 
Edmund Ironsides, was, as we have seen, of Danish 
descent on the mother's side. 

We may almost say that England was the spoil of the 
Danes before Canute came over and seized the sceptre. 
What a contrast does Canute the Great, with his proud 
jarls and chiefs, present to the weak Anglo-Saxons ! What 
vigour was at once developed in the government ! What 
bravery was displayed in the field ! 

Canute the conqueror must, from motives of gratitude 
alone, if not for other reasons, have rewarded his Danes, 
and especially his chiefs, with landed estates, large fiefs, 
and lucrative posts of honour. He divided all England 
into four earldoms (Jarledommer) : — Wessex, the most 
Saxon part of England, he himself took, as being the 
most dangerous and hostile district. Mercia, or th§ 
middle part of England, which was half Saxon and half 
Danish, he gave to Edrik Streon, who was in favour 
with the mixed population there, possibly because, as the 
proverb runs, he wore his cloak on both shoulders. The 
Danish districts of Northumbria and East Anglia he as- 
signed to his companion in arms, the Norwegian jarl, 
Erik, and the Danish jarl, Thorkil the Tall. Thorkil, 
meanwhile, had married King Ethelred's daughter, Ulf- 
hilde, after her first husband, Ulf kytel, had fallen in the 
battle of Ashingdon. A number of smaller fiefs in dif- 
ferent parts of England were made over, in a similar way, 
to Danish warriors of lower rank. Canute increased, 
moreover, tbe number of his guards of Scandinavian Hus- 
karle, or Thingmen, of whom his forefathers had already 
availed themselves ; and drew up for them a special code 
of laws, of such severity, that even the king himself could 
not infringe them with impunity. These Huskarle, or 
body guards, being thus totally separated from the Eng- 
lish by a peculiar system of law, became, in consequence, 
a really firm support for the kings. This Huskarle law, 



142 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

called Witherlagsretten, remained in force in the Danish 
court long after Canute's time. 

The letters-patent issued by Canute show him sur- 
rounded by a great number of Danish or Norwegian 
chieftains. Among the signatures we find the names of 
men celebrated in history, such as " Thurkil hoga," " Yric," 
or "Iric," jarls in East Anglia and Northumberland; Ulf, 
Canute's brother-in-law, and father of King Svend Es- 
tridsen of Denmark ; and also Hacun, a sister's son of 
Canute, and for a long time jarl in Worcestershire. All 
of these met a tragical fate. Thorkil and Erik had to 
wander in exile; Ulf was killed by Canute's order in 
Roeskilde ; and Hagen, after many vicissitudes of fortune, 
perished on a voyage to Norway, where Canute had ap- 
pointed him Stadtholder. Besides these, we find named 
the jarl Eglaf or iElaf (probably the leader of the Thing- 
men), Eilif Thorgilson, the jarls Haldenne (" princeps 
regis "), Eanig (Rane), Thrym, Siuard, Suuegen, Svend 
(1026), Tosti (1026), Sihtric, and others. Among the 
Thanes (ministri), appear Aslac, Tobi, Acun (Hagen), 
Boui (Bue), Toui, Siward, Haldan, Thurstan, Thord, Has- 
tin(g), Bro^or, Tofig, and several others ; and among the 
knights (milites), Thord, Thirkil, Thrim, Bro^or, Tokig, 
Ulf, and Siward. Several of Canute's chieftains, accord- 
ing to the genuine old Scandinavian custom, had surnames, 
mostly taken from their personal appearance ; as, besides 
" Thurcyl hoga," we find Thurcyl hwita (white), Thurcyl 
blaca (black), Thoui hwita, Toui reada (red), and Haldan 
searpse (Halfdan the Sharp). A letter dated in the year 
1033, is signed among others, by the chiefs : Jarl Siward, 
Osgod Clapa, Toui Pruda, Thurcyl, Harald, Thord, Half- 
den, Bold, Swane, Orm, Ulfkitel, Ketel, Gamal, and Orm ; 
and as the document relates to some land in Yorkshire, it 
is probable that many of these Danish chieftains dwelt 
in that old Danish district. A powerful Dane, named 
Ulf, a son of Thorald, is named as of York in Canute's time. 



Sect. XII.] DANISH SUPREMACY. 143 

He gave many estates to the cathedral there, together 
with a carved horn, by way of conveyance or title-deed, 
which is still preserved in the cathedral under the name 
of "Ulph's horn," or "the Danish horn." This Ulf is 
possibly the knight of that name before mentioned. A 
similar horn is said to have been given by Canute the 
Great, with some landed property, to the family of Pusey, 
of Berkshire. 

Under Canute's immediate successor, Harald Harefoot, 
as well as under Hardicanute, the power and grandeur of 
the Danish chieftains continued steadily to increase. 
Many besides those just mentioned are spoken of in 
letters of Hardicanute 's reign ; and above all the cele- 
brated Danish jarl Siward, surnamed Digre, who in the 
year 1040 became jarl in Northumberland. We also meet 
with the jarl Thuri ; the thanes Urki, Atsere (Adzer), and 
Thurgils ; the knight iEkig (Aage) ; and, in the chronicles, 
Styr and Thrand. Lastly, Osgod Clapa, and Toui Pruda 
are mentioned in the history of Hardicanute, but on a 
mournful occasion. It was at the marriage festival which 
Osgod Clapa made for his daughter and Toui Pruda, that 
Hardicanute had a stroke of apoplexy, from which he 
never recovered. Some, therefore, are of opinion that the 
marriage did not take place at Lambeth (see p. 20,) but at 
Clapham (Clapa-ham, or Clapa's home), in Surrey, to the 
south of Kennington, which now forms part of London. 

As long as their supremacy lasted, the Danes must 
naturally have behaved as conquerors in the land which 
they had subdued. Their innate love of splendour 
and profusion found ample nourishment, whilst at the 
same time their pride was flattered, by the subjugation 
of the Anglo-Saxons. The old English chroniclers com- 
plain bitterly of the severe humiliations which the natives 
were compelled to endure. If, for instance, Anglo-Saxons 
met a Dane upon a bridge, they were obliged to stand 
still, and make low bows ; nay, even if they were on horse- 
back, they must dismount, and wait till the Dane had 



144 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

passed. At the same time the Anglo-Saxon nobility 
gradually lost the many fiefs and lucrative posts of honour 
which had formerly been in their possession, but which 
were now transferred to their powerful conquerors. But 
what really injured the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy more than 
anything else, was the wise and conciliatory policy of Ca- 
nute the Great, which, by extinguishing the hatred between 
the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, amalgamated the aristocracy 
of the two nations to such a degree that the Anglo-Saxon 
nobility at length existed only in name, having become by 
imperceptible degrees more than half Danish. A contrary 
method of proceeding, a violent and sanguinary oppres- 
sion of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, would, perhaps, in 
some respects, have been more serviceable to them, as 
it would have inflamed their hatred, and provoked them 
to a desperate resistance ; and would thus have incited 
them to keep themselves free from the intrusion of all 
foreign admixture. 

As the matter stood, the Danish power apparently gave 
way to the Anglo-Saxon dominion ; but, in reality, it was 
little more than the name that was changed. It is said, 
indeed, that the new Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Con- 
fessor, some years after his accession (in 1048), expelled 
the great Danish chiefs and their descendants from his 
court, and drove them into exile ; as, for instance, Osgod 
Clapa, sheriff of Middlesex, and Asbjbrn, a brother of 
King Svend Estridsen of Denmark, whose second brother 
Bjorn, a jarl in the west of England, had shortly before 
been killed by the jarl Svend Godvinson. He also 
banished Canute the Great's niece, Gunhilde. By her 
first marriage with her cousin, Hagen Jarl, Stadtholder of 
Norway, Gunhilde had a daughter named Bothilde ; by her 
second with Harald, a son of Thorkil the Tall, who also 
succeeded to the Stadtholdership, she had two sons, Hem- 
ming and Thorkil. Gunhilde went into exile with her 
sons by way of Bruges in Flanders, and thence to her 
relatives in Denmark. 



Sect. XII.] DURATION OF DANISH INFLUENCE. 145 

Nevertheless the signatures to Edward's letters patent 
prove that this king, alleged to have been so favourably 
disposed towards the Anglo-Saxons, must have had many 
chiefs of Danish extraction about his person, even after 
this expulsion of the Danes ; nay, even to the day of his 
death. We need not look for them among the " Huskarle," 
or body-guards, alone, amongst whom are named Thurstan 
and Urk; for Huskarle with Scandinavian names are 
mentioned at a still later period in England ; and we find, 
under William the Conqueror (1071), Eylif Huscarl, and, 
even in 1230, Koger Huscarl. Even in King Edward's 
suite, and occupying considerable offices, were such men as 
" Atsere Swerte (Adser the black), Atsur roda (Adser the 
red), Eiglaf (Eylif), Gu^mund, Ulfketil, Thord, Siward, 
Thurstan, Harold, Turi, Yrc (Erik), Anschitil (Osketil), 
Ton, Neuetofig, Esgar, Ingold, Tosti, Thorgils, Wagen, 
Ulf Tons sune, Askyl Toke's sune, Jaulf Malte's sune." 
Also the knights Esbern (Asbjorn) and Siward, together 
with several others, the greater part of whose names ap- 
pear in letters that were issued after the expulsion of 
the Danes in 1048. Many of the royal fiefs were still 
in the hands of Danes. Jarl Siward Digre governed 
the extensive district of Northumberland with the same 
power and influence as before, till his death in the year 
1055. Somersetshire, lying far towards the west in the 
Saxon part of England, had a sheriff (vice-comes) named 
" Touid," or " Tofig," who can scarcely have been an Anglo- 
Saxon. We find a person named " Toli " filling the same 
high office in East Anglia ; as well as in Huntingdon- 
shire a " Tuli ; " in Hamptonshire, a " Norman ; " in 
Lincolnshire a " Marlesuuein." Northmen, or at least 
chiefs of Scandinavian origin, filled the highest posts at 
Edward's court. Between the years 1060 and 1066, a 
letter mentions the following royal chiefs, or " Hofsinder:" 
" Jaulf, Agamund, Ulf, Wegga (Viggo), Locar (Loke), and 
Hacun." In one of Edward's letters, dated 1062, the 
following names appear : — " Esgarus, regige procurator 

H 



146 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

aulae ; " " Bundinus, regis palatinus ; " " Adzurus, regis 
dapifer;" " Esbernus princeps;" " Siwardus princeps;" 
" Hesbernus regis consanguineus." These are all pure 
Danish names, viz., Esgar, or Asgier, Bonde, Adser, 
Asbjbrn, and Sivard. The different Latin titles here given 
to Esgar, Bonde, and Adser, are translated in contempo- 
rary letters by one and the same word, " steallere " or 
"stalre." The dignity of " Staller " was also, as is well 
known, an established one in the courts of the Scandi- 
navian kings, at all events after the time of Canute the 
Great. The Staller was superintendent of the court, or a 
sort of High Steward, and attended the " Thing " meetings 
for the king, but more particularly in cases which con- 
cerned the court. From an English diploma, dated 1060- 
1066, and signed by "Esegar steallere," "Bondig steallere," 
and " Roulf steallere," we see that there were several " Stal- 
lers " at the same time in England ; which certainly arose 
from the Stallers being also the kings commissaries. 

The last-named," Roulf steallere," is probably the Ralph 
so much in favour with King Edward, and w r ho was a 
son of Edward's sister and a Norman nobleman. Another 
Staller of Norman descent is mentioned in letters of the 
years 1044 and 1065, namely, Roldburtus, or Rodbertus, 
son of Win ware. Indeed Norman names begin to be 
frequent in Edward's letters patent ; for, as a consequence 
of the favour which he bore towards the Normans, many 
of whom he gradually placed in the highest posts of 
honour in England, there quickly grew up by the side of 
the pure Danish elements, what may be called a half- 
Danish or half-Scandinavian influence from Normandy, 
which was soon to supplant the Danish power, as well as 
annihilate once for all the apparent dominion of the Anglo- 
Saxons in England. Thus Edward's reign was clearly 
only a state of transition from the Danish to the Norman 
dominion ; a national Anglo-Saxon reign it could not well 
be called. 

How, indeed, should Edward have been able to maintain, 



Sect. XII.] FALL OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LINE. 147 

or rather to reinstate upon the throne of England a purely 
national Anglo-Saxon line, after it had long been broken 
by the Danes ? Edward's own race may, in a manner, be 
said to show how weak and irretrievably declining was 
the Anglo-Saxon element. Edward himself was a son of 
the Norman princess, Emma, and thus brother-in-law to 
the Danish jarl, Thorkil the Tall, who had married his 
sister Ulfhilde, widow of the Danish jarl Ulfketil Snil- 
ling ; he was half-brother to his predecessor on the throne, 
the Danish king Hardicanute ; and he was married to 
Editha, daughter of Jarl Godwin, by his second wife, 
Gyda, who, being a daughter of the Jarl Thorkil Sprakaleg, 
nephew of the Danish king Harald Blaatand, was of 
Danish descent. Godwin, moreover, in his first marriage, 
is said to have espoused a Danish woman, a daughter of 
Svend Tveskjaeg, and sister to Canute the Great. Thus 
Edward the Confessor's queen, Editha, and her well-known 
brothers Svend, Harald, Gurth, and Toste, who, both during 
and after Edwards reign, played a highly remarkable part 
in English history, were on the mother's side of Danish 
extraction, of which the Scandinavian names of Godwin's 
sons bear sufficient evidence. It was partly also in con- 
sideration of this Scandinavian kinsmanship that Toste 
sought assistance in Denmark and Norway against his 
brother, King Harald ; and that afterwards (in the year 
1066), both Toste's son, Skule, and Harald's son, Edmund, 
fled to Scandinavia — the former through Orkney to Nor- 
way, the latter straight to Denmark — after their fathers 
had fallen, within a short period, in the battles of Stamford 
Bridge and Hastings. It is remarkable enough that 
Godwin's race should return to, and even flourish in, that 
same Scandinavian North whence, on the mother's side, it 
had sprung. Toste's son, Skule, married in Norway 
Gudrun, a daughter of Harald Haardraade's sister, and 
became by her the progenitor of so mighty a race, both 
of jarls and kings, that their branches extended over the 
whole of Scandinavia. 

H 2 



148 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 



[Sect. XTT. 



During the last period of the declining house of the 
Anglo-Saxon kings, we further meet with the Scandi- 
navian names of Guttorm, Hagen, and Magnus. The 
name of Magnus, borne by King Harald Godvin son's 
youngest son, was introduced into Norway through a mis- 
take. It is related that a son having been born one night 
to King Olaf (Saint Olaf), no one dared to awake the King 
and inform him of it. The child, however, being very 
weakly, the priest Sigh vat Skjaldt took upon himself to 
baptize it, and called it Magnus, after " the best man in 
the world," Karl Magnus, or Charlemagne ; probably in 
the belief that the Latin word magnus, which was only 
the Emperor Charles' surname, was a real name. The boy 
grew up, and afterwards became king of Norway, where 
he was usually called " Magnus the Good." Magnus's 
grave is said to have been discovered in St. John's Church, 
in the town of Lewes, in Sussex. In the new church, 
which has lately been built on the site of the old one, 




Sect. XII.] MAGNUS THE GOOD. ] 49 

has been preserved, and built into the wall, the monu- 
mental stone, which bears the following inscription : — 
" Clauditur hie miles Danorum regia proles ; 
Mangnus nome(n) ei Mangne nota progeniei. 
Deponens Mangnum, se moribus induit agnum 
P (re) pete p(ro) vita fit parvulus arnacorita." 
Or, " Here lies a warrior (or knight) of the royal Danish race ; his 
name, Mangnus, is the mark of his great descent. Laying aside his 
greatness he adopted the habits of a lamb, and exchanged his busy life 
for that of a simple hermit." 

That this Magnus, " of the royal Danish race," was 
the son of the Harald Godvinson lately mentioned 
(whose mother Gyda, it is true, was of the Danish royal 
family) is, however, a mere conjecture. An older legend 
states that he was a Danish chief, or commander, taken 
prisoner by the English in a sanguinary battle near 
Lewes, and who, being well treated, afterwards laid aside 
his sword, and became a hermit at that place. (See Lower,- 
in " Transactions of the British Archaeological Association 
at its second Congress at Winchester," pp. 307-310.) 
It may, perhaps, be most probable that he was one' of those; 
scions of the Danish aristocracy that remained in the south 
of England after the Norman conquest had overthrown 
the supremacy of the Danish chiefs in that part. 

It was in the south of England, where William the 
Conqueror first established his power, that the Norman 
nobility obtained their earliest possessions. In the mid- 
land and northern districts, on the contrary, it was neither 
easy to subdue the country, nor to annihilate entirely the 
Danish aristocracy, which had completely coalesced with 
the essentially Danish population. Long after the con- 
quest, therefore, the Danish chiefs continued to preserve 
their independence, or at least their influence, in those 
parts. A remarkable instance of this, though taken only 
from a single district, is afforded by William's own 
" Domesday-Book," drawn up about twenty years after the 
conquest. In this, under the head of Lincolnshire, are 
mentioned the great persons who possessed the right of 



150 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XII. 

administering justice on their estates, together with other 
privileges belonging to noblemen, such as sacam and socam, 
and Tol and Thiam ; and among them are found " Harald 
Jarl ; the Jarl Waltef (Valthjof) ; Kadulf Jarl ; Merlesuen ; 
Turgot; Tochi, son of Outi; Stori (Stjr) ; Radulf " stalre;" 
Rolf, son of Sceldeware; Harold "stalre;" "Siuuard barn;" 
Achi (Aage), son of Sivard ; Azer, son of Sualena ; Outi, 
son of Azer ; Tori, son of Bold ; Toli, son of Alsi ; Azer, 
son of Burg; " Uluuard uuite;" Ulf ; Haminc (Hemming); 
Bardt; Suan, son of Suane." Now even if it be certain 
that several of these chiefs were Normans, particularly 
since the Norman names at that time still preserved their 
primitive Scandinavian form, yet it is clear that most 
of them were Danish-English. It is to be regretted that 
Domesday-Book does not comprise the ancient Northum- 
berland, as that district would certainly have afforded 
more names of Danish chieftains than even the old Danish 
Lincolnshire ; for the Danish aristocracy were never 
driven out or entirely subdued in those parts ; but rather 
must have amalgamated in the course of time with their 
countrymen, the Norman nobility, until the latter by 
degrees gained the ascendancy. This is at once shown by 
the notorious fact that neither William the Conqueror, nor 
his immediate successors, obtained such mastery over 
the north of England and its Danish population, as over 
the rest of that country; since the inhabitants of the 
north fought, with the bravery inherited from their fore- 
fathers, for their Danish chiefs, and for their peculiar, and 
partly Danish, institutions, manners, and customs. 



Sect XIII.] SCANDINAVIAN CHAEACTER. 151 



Section XIII. 

The Danelag. — Holmgang, or Duel. — Jury.— The Feeling of 
Freedom. 

The Anglo-Saxons were the teachers of the Danes in 
several ways ; above all they made them Christians, and 
thus communicated to them a new and higher civiliz- 
ation. The Danes in England reaped advantage from the 
civilization of the Anglo-Saxons, just as the Anglo-Saxons 
themselves had once begun their own, by building on that 
refinement which their predecessors, the Romans, had 
disseminated in England. 

But as the Anglo-Saxons did not become Romans, be- 
cause they adopted and remodelled the Roman civilization ; 
nor the Normans in Normandy Frenchmen, because after 
their settlement in France they soon assumed many of 
the French manners and customs ; so neither did the 
Danes in England become Anglo-Saxons, however much 
they might have been indebted to them for their civiliza- 
tion. The Normans in France retained, in spite of their 
Christianity and French refinement, the characteristic 
stamp of their Scandinavian origin, which afterwards 
caused them to play quite a peculiar part in history. 
In like manner the Danes in England, amidst the re- 
finements of the Anglo-Saxons, undoubtedly preserved 
many of their Scandinavian characteristics, which did not 
disappear without leaving visible and very remarkable 
traces. But the Scandinavian spirit stamped itself, though 
perhaps only apparently, in a somewhat different manner 
on the Norman race in Normandy, and on the Danes in 
England. 

Among the Normans in France the Scandinavian spirit 
worked, so to speak, only outwardly, in magnificent con- 
quests, of which the chief theatres were England, Italy, 
and Sicily. Chivalry and feudalism, with their crusades, 
communicated a new impulse to it; but, internally, it 



152 THE DANES IK ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

effected comparatively little for France. It did not 
manifest itself in Normandy by forming political institu- 
tions capable of supplanting the oldest and most essential 
French laws and constitutions ; nor, indeed, are we able to 
point out with exactness what really Scandinavian customs 
the Normans established in that country. Yet it can scarcely 
be doubted that they introduced there trial by jury, as 
well as trial by battle, and other Scandinavian legal insti- 
tutions. 

In England, on the other hand, the northern character 
showed itself so far outwardly active as to exercise a vast 
and unmistakable influence on her commerce and navi- 
gation, and on the bold and adventurous spirit of enter- 
prise among her people ; which, though at a much later 
period than the conquests of the Normans, has neverthe- 
less extended her dominion over every sea. But in 
England it has also been internally a living and guiding 
spirit, in the formation of her judicial and political institu- 
tions. It is an incontrovertible and notorious fact, which 
has, however, hardly been sufficiently insisted upon, that 
about half of England — the so-called " Danelag," or com- 
munity of the Danes — was for centuries subject to Danish 
laws ; that these laws existed even after the Norman 
conquest ; and that they did not pass into the general or 
common law of England, till the successors of William 
the Conqueror at last united into a whole the various dis- 
cordant parts into which England had been previously 
divided. When we remember that the Normans long 
retained a predilection for old Scandinavian institutions 
and forms of judicature, it seems highly probable that 
the Danish laws, which had for so long a period prevailed 
in England, did not disappear under their sway without 
the new laws, which they established, deriving from the 
old a particular colour, and certain Scandinavian stamp. 
A further examination of this point will scarcely be su- 
perfluous, as it will enable us to judge hdw far those 
are right who, in company with one of England's most 



Sect. XIII.] SCANDINAVIAN INSTITUTIONS. 15o 

celebrated statesmen (Sir R. Peel, in a speech in Parlia- 
ment), are proud that " the Danes tried in vain to over- 
throw the institutions of England, instead of securing 
them ; " and then reproach the Danes that, on the whole, 
they did not, after all their devastating expeditions, esta- 
blish anything new, great, and durable. 

The population of the heathen North, as was the case 
everywhere else at that period, was divided into serfs 
and freemen. Even after the introduction of Christianity, 
many centuries elapsed in all countries before thraldom 
was abolished, and the worth of man, as man, generally 
recognised. The serf was always regarded more as an 
animal than as a human being. The freeman, on the con- 
trary, enjoyed a high degree of civil liberty. He was not 
only uncontrolled master in his own house, and among his 
nearest dependents, but likewise exercised an important 
influence on the management of the public concerns of his 
own district and of his country. He took part in the 
decision of law cases in the " Thing," and gave his vote at 
the great " Thing," where the election of a monarch, war, 
treaties of peace, and other important matters, came under 
consideration. Scandinavia was, besides, in ancient times, 
divided into a number of small kingdoms ; and the smaller 
these were, so much the greater was the individual free- 
man's power and importance. 

The old inhabitants of the North entertained, therefore, 
a sincere affection for those institutions which gratified 
their proud feeling of freedom. Personal participation in 
the administration of justice, at a time when written laws 
did not exist, must have made every freeman a lawyer and 
a zealous defender of existing institutions, especially so 
far as regarded the main point, namely, the freedom they 
ensured. A general knowledge of the laws was still fur- 
ther promoted by the innate love of the Northmen for dis- 
putes and law-suits. Respect for the law was speedily 
carried to such an extent, and in the administration of 
justice at the Things old established customs and usages 

h 3 



154 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

were so strictly observed, that the slightest formal flaw was 
sufficient to ensure the rejection even of the most important 
cause. How deeply rooted the old national law was, is 
best shown by the fact that the Roman law, which had 
been adopted in the greater part of Europe, could never 
gain the supremacy in the countries of Scandinavia. The 
present Scandinavian law is by no means the offspring of 
any foreign code, but is founded on, and independently 
developed from, the law which already existed in the North 
in the days of heathenism. 

The powerful warriors, who in those remote times emi- 
grated from the North, were, for the most part, men no 
less high-spirited and fond of freedom than their fathers 
before them. The old chronicles state, that among 
the warriors who came over to England with the con- 
querors Svend and Canute, there was not a single serf. 
The history of Iceland shows, even at an earlier period, 
that most of the colonists who went thither were descend- 
ants of kings, jarls, and other of the most powerful free- 
men of the North. These emigrants did not leave their 
paternal home because they were dissatisfied with their 
ancient hereditary rights and liberties, but because those 
rights and liberties were gradually threatened with restric- 
tion, and even annihilation, by ambitious and absolute 
monarchs. It was this that led them to undertake the 
conquest of foreign lands, and thus to acquire a freedom 
which might indemnify them for what they had been com- 
pelled to relinquish. 

It is therefore no wonder that the Scandinavian colo- 
nists introduced their national laws, which had always 
proved the surest defence of their liberties, at once and 
completely both into countries previously uninhabited, and 
into those from which the ancient inhabitants were ex- 
pelled by their invasions. This was the case, for instance, 
in Greenland, the Faroe Isles, the Shetland Isles, and the 
Orkneys. But with regard to freedom they even went 
still further than in Scandinavia, and sometimes abolished 



Sect. XIII.] SCANDINAVIAN INSTITUTIONS. 155 

the regal power, whose caprices and dangers they had 
learned to appreciate and fear, and founded republics 
in its place. Even in countries like France and Eng- 
land, where a large and civilized population, possessing 
a complete system of national law, previously existed — 
and where the Scandinavian colonists, till they became 
strong enough to assume the authority of masters, were for 
a long time inferior both in numbers and power — they 
adhered immovably to their ancient legal customs, and 
caused them to be observed, in spite of Christianity, and 
of that foreign civilization which they themselves soon 
adopted. But it was at the same time a natural result of 
this state of things, that they were neither able to introduce 
into such countries all the ancient legal usages of Scandi- 
navia, nor, generally speaking, any law of a comprehensive 
character, without adapting it to the peculiar situation 
which they, as conquerors and strangers, now occupied in 
regard to the natives and their existing institutions. 

A strong proof, not only of the affection of the Danes 
for their Scandinavian institutions, but of the complete 
settlement of that people in England at a very early 
period, is, that in the beginning of the tenth century, 
and consequently more than a hundred years before the 
time of Canute the Great, they had already established 
their own laws on the east coast of England, notwithstand- 
ing that Christianity, as before stated, had gained a 
footing amongst them. It appears, from the remarkable 
treaty concluded at that time between Kings Edward and 
Gudrum, that the Danes settled in East Anglia, and on 
the eastern coast of England, were not only placed on an 
equal footing with the English with regard to legal rights, 
but that it was also determined how disputes between the 
English and Danes should be decided, and what fine each 
people should pay for certain crimes. Thus the English 
were to pay "wite" or fines, according to the English law, 
in pounds and shillings ; whilst the Danes were to make 
compensation for " lah-slit " (i. e., infraction of the law, 



156 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

from the old Norsk, log, law, and slita, to rend in two, 
break), according to the Danish law, in "marks" and "ores." 

About the same time the chronicles testify that the 
" five burghs " occupied by the Danes in the heart of 
England, together with large districts both in the 
east and north, were subject to Danish laws. The 
Anglo-Saxon king Edgar (959-975) says, in a passage 
of his laws (cap. 12), which shows his partiality for 
the Danes, " Then will I that with the Danes such good 
laws stand as they may best choose, and as I have ever 
permitted to them, and will permit so loug as life shall last 
me, for their fidelity, which they have ever shown me." 
He likewise says in the next chapter, where mention is 
made of a fixed punishment : " Let the Danes chuse, ac- 
cording to their laws, what punishment they will adopt." 

From this state of things, it happened that four dif- 
ferent sorts of law were in force in four different parts 
of the kingdom. Farthest towards the west, where the 
remnant of the ancient Britons dwelt, the Welsh law was 
in force ; among the West Saxons, the West-Saxon law ; 
in Mercia, the Mercian law ; and in the so-called Danelag, 
or country to the north-east of Watlinga-Strset, the 
Danish law. Of these four systems of law, the Danish, 
beyond comparison, most prevailed. Its decrees were in 
later times constantly recognised, not only by Ethelred 
(not to speak of the Danish kings), but by Edward the 
Confessor and William the Conqueror, whose laws usually 
treat of the " Danes-law " (Dene-lahe), with its fines, or 
" lah-slit" in marks and ores. Even in the laws promul- 
gated by Henry the First (1100-1135), it is stated (vi. § 1), 
that England is divided into three parts, Wessex, Mercia, 
and the province of the Danes. (" Regnum Anglie 
trifariam dividitur in regno Britannie, in Westsexiam, et 
Mircenos, et Danorum provinciam.") And it is further 
said (§ 2), that the law of England falls into three parts, 
according to the above division, viz., the West Saxon, the 
Mercian, and the Danish law, or Denelaga. (" Legis 



Sect. XIII.] THE "DANELAG." 157 

eciam Anglice trina est particio, ad superiorem modum ; 
alia enim Westsexie, alia Mircena, alia Denelaga est.") 

A cursory view of these different laws will soon show, 
both that Scandinavian words and juridical terms were 
employed in the Danelag, and that by degrees, but mostly 
in the time of Canute the Great and William the Con- 
queror, they were introduced into the common laws of 
England : as, for instance, " hor-qwene " (Hoerquinde ; 
Eng., adultress), "nam," "halsfang," " heimillborch," 
(Hjemmelborg), " husting," and others. For the rest, it 
is natural that most traces of the old Scandinavian 
institutions should be found in the districts to the north- 
east of Watlinga- Street. 

The Danes settled there had from the beginning several 
chiefs with the title of king, who were for the most part 
independent of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and reigned by 
means of their jarls and the chiefs to whom they had por- 
tioned out the conquered land. These numerous small 
kingdoms were afterwards subdued by the Anglo-Saxons, 
and converted into Earldoms. A peculiar sort of Danish 
chiefs or Udallers (" holdas," from the old Norsk li'olldr), 
is mentioned in East Anglia, who, like the Norwegian 
"Holdar," or " Odelsmsend," held their properties by a 
perfectly free tenure. It is probable that the original 
Udallers were the chief leaders, or generals, of the Danish 
conquerors settled in East Anglia. From the fines fixed 
for the murder of such " holdas," it is plain that they held 
a very high rank. The old Scandinavian name for a 
peasant, " Bonda" was also disseminated in the north of 
England. There, as in Scandinavia, the peasants un- 
doubtedly constituted the pith of the landed proprietary. 
The names of places in the north of England beginning 
or ending with garth (or Gaard), such as Watgarth 
(Vadegaard, on the river Tees), Grassgarth, Hall Garth, 
Garthorpe, Garthwaite, and others, show that the peasants, 
as in Scandinavia, were settled in Gaarde, or farms, which 
belonged indeed to the before-mentioned " holdas" (" Odels- 



158 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

mand "), or other feudal lords ; but which nevertheless 
seem, in some degree, to have been the property of the 
peasants, on condition of their paying certain rents to 
their feudal lords, and binding themselves to contribute to 
the defence of the country. Other landed proprietors, or 
agriculturists, with pure Scandinavian names, appear in 
Cheshire under the appellation of " drenghs " or JDrenge. 

The Danes and Norwegians in North England settled 
their disputes and arranged their public affairs at the 
Things, according to Scandinavian custom. The present 
village of Thingwall (or the Thing -fields), in Cheshire, was 
a place of meeting for the Thing ; and not only bore the 
same name as the old chief Tiling place in Iceland, but 
also as the old Scandinavian Thing places, " Dingwall," in 
the north of Scotland ; " Tingwall, in the Shetland Isles ; 
and " Tynewald," or " Tingwall," in the Isle of Man. 
There were incontestably in the Danish parts of England 
certain larger or common Thing-meetings for the several 
districts, which were superior to the Things of separate 
ones ; and it may even be a question whether traces of 
them are not to be found in the division into Hidings, at 
present used only in Yorkshire, but which formerly pre- 
vailed also in Lincolnshire. Originally these divisions had 
not the name of reding or riding, which they did not 
obtain till later, and undoubtedly through a misconception. 
Yorkshire is at the present time divided into the North, 
East, and West Eidings ; and, according to Domesday-Book, 
Lincolnshire also was (about the year 1080) divided into 
Nort-treding, Westreding, and Sudtreding ; consequently, 
like Yorkshire, into three parts. These divisions were 
called by the Anglo-Saxons "priding," or "Thriting." 
Now, as they were foreign to the Anglo-Saxons, whose 
historians did not even know how to explain their origin, 
and as they also appear exclusively in the two most 
Danish districts in England, it is surely not unreasonable 
to seek their origin in Scandinavian institutions, in which 
a simple and natural explanation of them may certainly be 



Sect. XIII.] RIDINGS AND WAPENTAKES. 159 

found. In Scandinavia, and particularly in the south of 
Norway, provinces or Fylker (petty kingdoms), were not 
only divided into halves (halfur) and fourths (fjorSjungar), 
but also into thirds, or Tredinger (Jpri'Sjungar), which 
completely answer to the North-English " thrithing." It 
was, moreover, precisely to the Tredings-things that all dis- 
puted causes were referred from the smaller district Things. 
It is more doubtful whether we may ascribe to the 
Danes alone the introduction of the word " Wapentake " 
(Vaabentag), as the peculiar designation for a district. In 
the northern counties of England, viz., Northamptonshire, 
Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, this term 
is still used instead of the customary one of " Hundred." 
Yet there is some probability that it may have been 
derived from the circumstance that the Danes, like the 
ancient inhabitants of the North in general, elected their 
chiefs, and signified their assent to any proposition at the 
Things, by Vaabentag, or Vaabenlarm (sound, or clang of 
arms). Vaabentag (Wapentake) might thus have become 
the name of a small district, having its own chief and 
its own Thing. A law of King Ethelred's (see Thorpe, 
Leges et Instit. Anglo -Sax., Glossary, Lahman), which 
seems to have been promulgated only for the five Danish 
burghs, and the rest of the Danish part of England, 
orders that there shall be in every Wapentake a Gemot 
or Thing. It is at all events very remarkable, that the 
division into Wapentakes should exist only in old Danish 
North England. 

In the towns occupied by the Danes, as in the five 
burghs — or, if Chester and York be included, in the " seven 
cities " — there was certainly a Danish Thing, as well as in 
the rural districts. The English word by-laiv — still used 
to denote municipal or corporate law, which is neither 
more nor less than the Danish " By-Lov," and which, 
consequently, must have retained its name ever since 
the times of the Danes — shows at once that they must at 
least have had some share in developing the system of 



]60 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

judicature in the English cities. It is, besides, well known 
that there was in remote times a Scandinavian "busting " 
in Sheppey, London, and Winchester, as well as York and 
Lincoln, and consequently in places south of Watlinga- 
Strset. Of the seven cities before mentioned, only York 
and Lincoln are with certainty known to have had " hust- 
ings ; " but nevertheles, it can scarcely be doubted that 
there must have been similar Things in the other five 
cities. I may add, that the tribunals existing in them 
are called, in the Anglo-Saxon text of Ethelred's laws for 
the five burghs just alluded to, " Gethingd " — a word which 
bears an undeniable resemblance to the Scandinavian 
Thing ; whilst in Anglo-Saxon such courts were called 
" Gemote 

According to old English records, the Danish laws in 
force in the Danish part of England, though in several 
respects strikingly similar to the Anglo-Saxon laws, dif- 
fered from them in many points. It is not, indeed, clearly 
determined in what these differences and resemblances 
consisted ; but it is at all events certain that the dissimi- 
larity cannot have been confined merely to the difference 
before mentioned in the amount of the fines, nor to the 
mode of calculating them ; which, as previously stated, 
was in marks and ores in the Danish part of England, and 
in pounds and shillings in the Anglo-Saxon districts. 

In law-suits among the Anglo-Saxons, the usual kinds 
of proof were by oath, by witnesses, by cojurors, and by the 
ordeal of hot iron, or the judgment of God. It was at an 
early period also customary, in the heathen North, to use 
by way of proof oaths, cojurors, and witnesses ; but instead 
of the ordeal by hot iron, which was first introduced under 
Christianity, the old Northmen had quite a different way of 
deciding their legal disputes, and one which agreed better 
with their martial spirit, namely, by duel. By some this 
method was also considered a peculiar kind of God's judg- 
ment ; but it should rather, perhaps, be regarded as the sub- 
jecting of the original feud, or quarrel, to certain settled 



Sect. XIII.J "HOLMGANG," OR TEIAL BY DUEL. 161 

forms. This sort of combat was called " holmgang" be- 
cause the duel generally took place on a small island, or 
holm, where it was conducted according to fixed laws. Both 
plaintiff and defendant had the right of challenging their 
adversary. Although this mode of deciding legal disputes 
might easily be, and indeed sometimes was, abused by evil- 
doers — who did not scruple to take advantage of the weak- 
ness and want of warlike skill in others, in order to obtain 
possession of their estates — still it was far more in favour 
in the North than the proofs by oath and cojurors. The 
Normans carried it with them into Normandy ; and there 
can scarcely be a doubt that the Danes and Normans, 
long before the Norman conquest of England — nay, long 
before Canute the Great's time — introduced it into the- 
Danelag in the north of England ; where, at least, the^ 
word " Holmgang" in its pure Scandinavian meaning, was 
in use for many generations. 

But a peculiar, and in its results highly important, 
judicial institution prevailed in the North, namely " Ncefn" 
" Ncpfninger " (Ngevninger) ; or, as it has been called in later 
times in English, " Jury." According to the most ancient 
Danish laws the accuser had a right, particularly in im- 
portant criminal causes, to select from among the people a 
certain number of jurors (Nsevninger), who, after taking an 
oath, were to condemn or acquit the accused ; and judgment 
was not pronounced till they had given their verdict. The 
accuser s choice of jurors was limited by law to owners of 
landed property who were not related to him ; neither were 
they to be inimically disposed towards the accused, who had 
the right of challenging any of them. The decision of 
the jury was declared according to the majority of votes. 
In some districts at least, as for instance in Scania (Skaane), 
the accused was allowed, if the decision of the jury was 
against him, to appeal to the ordeal by red-hot iron, which, 
after the introduction of Christianity, became an important 
mode of proof in the North. But after the abolition of 
that ordeal in Denmark (in 1218), and after the heathen 



162 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. TSect. XIII. 

mode of duelling, or holmgang, had been abolished by Chris- 
tianity, and superseded by the institution of juries, this last 
method of trial played an important part, and became 
popular with the people because it afforded them a parti- 
cipation in the administration of justice, and at the same 
time secured their civil liberties. Nevertheless trial by 
jury was at length obliged to yield to newer forms of law 
in Scandinavia; and just in proportion as the ancient free- 
dom of the people was lost, the political institutions which 
had originated from it also disappeared. 

England, as is well known, is the only country that, 
in spite of all commotions, has preserved trial by jury down 
to modern times. But it is a matter of much dispute to 
what people may be more particularly ascribed the honour 
of introducing an institution which has not only for many 
centuries been of much service to freedom in England, but 
which has also been transplanted in later times into many 
other countries, and is now on the point of being dissemi- 
nated over all that part of Europe which may be called 
free. Many learned men assert that trial by jury was un- 
known to the Anglo-Saxons, and maintain that its proper 
home was the Scandinavian North, whence it was earned 
by the Northmen into Normandy, and from that country 
into England by means of the conquest. Others again as- 
sert almost the direct contrary; maintaining, that the tra- 
dition which ascribes the introduction of juries to the 
Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred the Great, though it does not 
speak the literal truth in deriving the institution merely 
from that monarch, is still thus far deserving of credence, 
that trial by jury was known and used by the Anglo-Saxons 
long before the Norman conquest. These persons are of 
opinion, that the Danes and Normans even set aside the 
jury for the barbarous Holmgang, or duel, until in the 
course of time that venerable relic of ancient Saxon free- 
dom again obtained the ascendancy. In order to prove 
this, they point especially to a passage in one of Ethelred's 
laws (Ethelred, hi. § 3), which ordains " that every Wa- 



Sect. XIII.] TBIAL BY JUBY. 163 

pentake shall have its Thing;" and " that a ' Gemot' be 
held in every Wapentake, and the XII senior Thanes go 
out, and the reeve with them, and swear on the relic that 
is given to them in hand, that they will accuse no innocent 
man, nor conceal any guilty one." Further (§ 13) : " And 
let doom stand where Thanes are of one voice ; if they 
disagree let that stand which VIII of them say ; and let 
those who are outvoted pay, each of them, VI half-marks." 
To these passages may be added another, also of Ethelred's 
time (Ordinance respecting the Dun-Setas, § 3), wherein 
it is ordered that : " XII lahmen shall explain the law to 
the Wealas and English, VI English, and VI Wealas. 
Let them forfeit all they possess if they explain it wrongly ; 
or clear themselves that they knew no better." 

That a jury is here spoken of is beyond all doubt. But 
a highly-remarkable circumstance has been too much over- 
looked, namely, that Ethelred's above-mentioned regulation 
as to the composition of the jury is contained only in the 
law just cited; which, according to the opinion of its 
latest English editor, was intended only for the Five 
Burghs and the surrounding Danish districts. (" The 
document of Ethelred, above referred to, seems, in a great 
measure, to have been published for the sake of the Five 
Burgs.'' 1 — Thorpe.) That it cannot have been intended 
for the Anglo-Saxon part of England may be immediately 
seen from the circumstance that all the fines mentioned in 
it are, without exception, fixed, according to Danish custom, 
in marks and ores, or ore, and not, after the Anglo-Saxon 
custom, in pounds and shillings. In this concise law, 
moreover, we find several Danish legal terms which were 
not in use in the south of England ; for instance, " lah- 
cop" (Old Norsk, " logkaup "); "wit-word" (Old N., 
"vitorS"); and " thrinna XII," or " trende Tylvter 
Eed " ( i. e. three twelves oath). With respect also to the 
" XII lahmen," or, as they are called in Latin, " lagemanni " 
(Old Norsk, logma^r), mentioned in Ethelred's time, it has 
long been agreed in England that they must have been 



164 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

originally instituted by the Danes. (Thorpe says : " The 
institution was most probably of Danish origin, as we gene- 
rally meet with them in the Danish portion of the country") 
They were constantly twelve in number, and it can scarcely 
admit of a doubt that their functions were the same as 
those of " the twelve eldest Thanes " before mentioned, 
and that consequently they were regular jurymen. We see, 
moreover, from Domesday-Book, which mentions " Lage- 
manni " only in the Danish portion of North England, 
viz., in Cambridge, Stamford, Lincoln, and Chester, that 
they were Thanes, or at least equal to Thanes in rank and 
privileges. Among other things, jurisdiction (sacam and 
socam) was conceded to them over their inferiors, or sub- 
jects. In the old Danish city of Lincoln the names are 
recited of those who were previously Lah-men, and of 
those who remained so when Domesday-Book was compiled. 
These names, which are partly pure Danish — as, for in- 
stance, Hardecnut, Ulf, son of Suertebrand, Walrauen, 
Siuuard, Aldene( Haldan), and others — prove that sons fre- 
quently succeeded their fathers in the office of Lah-man 
(for instance, " Suardinc loco Hardecnut patris sui. Sor- 
tebrand loco Ulf patris sui. Agemund loco Walrauen 
patris sui. Godvinus fil. Brictric"). 

For the rest, since we might search the old Saxon laws 
in vain for any other certain traces of jurymen besides 
these, and as special care must be taken not to confound 
jurymen with cojurors, it becomes quite clear, first, that 
those authors who conclude, from the above often -quoted 
passages of Ethelred's law, that the English jury is of 
Anglo-Saxon origin, are in error; and secondly, that their 
opponents have not taken a quite impartial view of the 
matter when they ascribe the introduction of the jury into 
England to the conquest by William of Normandy. For 
it must now be regarded as a point quite decided that the 

EARLIEST POSITIVE TRACES OF A JURY IN ENGLAND APPEAR 
IN THE DANELAG, AMONG THE DANES ESTABLISHED THERE, 

and that, long before William the Conqueror's time, they 



Sect. XIII.] TRIAL BY JUEY. 165 

had brought over from their old home the Scandinavian 
Ncevn, or jury, into the districts north-east of Watlinga- 
Straet, colonized by them, just as their kinsmen and bro- 
thers introduced that powerful safeguard of popular free- > 
dom into Iceland and Normandy. It would, indeed, have , 
been quite inexplicable that the Danes should have given 
up their peculiar Scandinavian Ncevn in a country like 
England, where the Danish law obtained by degrees so ex- 
tensive a footing that, during the reign of the first Norman 
kings, it was still in force in one-half of the kingdom. 

The provisions in Ethelred's law, so frequently cited, 
respecting the force of the majority of votes in the verdict 
of the jury, also betray a likeness, which can scarcely have 
been accidental, to the regulations of the Ncevn, or jury, at 
that time observed in Denmark. According to the most 
ancient Danish laws, the outvoted jurymen were also to pay 
fines% For the rest, there is this peculiarity in the jury of 
the Danish part of England, that from the time of Ethelred 
it was no longer chosen by the complainant, as was originally 
the case in Denmark, but by the court, or by the sheriff of 
the district ("gerefa"); which was a considerable step 
gained towards security against partiality. The choice of 
jurymen was, besides, still more limited in England than 
in Denmark. Instead of landed proprietors in general, 
the twelve eldest Thanes alone were eligible ; whence it 
followed that the jurymen were not only fixed, but also ob- 
tained, as a reward for their labour, a certain rank, with 
the rights and income attached to it. This more aristo- 
cratical form of the jury undoubtedly sprang from the cir- 
cumstance that the Danes had entered the northern and 
eastern districts of England as lords and conquerors. They 
could not, consequently, appoint as jurors native Anglo- 
Saxons, unacquainted with the customs of the Danish law 
courts ; nor would they, assuredly, have permitted a con- 
quered people to take a part in verdicts affecting them- 
selves and their Scandinavian brethren. The consequence 
was, that they chose from among themselves men of con- 



166 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

sideration, and acquainted with the law, to conduct the ad- 
ministration of justice. It is very remarkable that a later 
development of the law in Denmark produced a similar 
change in the jury, the jurors not being chosen for a single 
cause, but for a period. In Jutland even " Sandemcend" 
or jurors appointed by the crown, were instituted, who seem 
to have answered to the before-mentioned Lag-men, or 
Lahmen, in the north of England. Eight landed pro- 
prietors were selected in every district by the king, and 
discharged the office of jurymen for life, unless they for- 
feited it by some misdemeanour. 

Not the least trace is to be found in the old English 
laws and chronicles that the Danish laws in force in the 
Dane-lag were more barbarous than the contemporary Anglo- 
Saxon ones in the south of England. On the contrary, 
the fact lately mentioned, that the beneficial change in the 
composition and working powers of the jury, which had 
long been in force in Danish North-England, was in far 
later times adopted in Norman England, seems rather to 
attest, in no slight degree, the superiority of the laws of 
the Dane-lag. On the whole, the Danish kings in Eng- 
land, and particularly Canute the Great, seem to have been 
excellent lawgivers. Canute's laws respecting the limita- 
tion of capital punishment, the right of every man to hunt 
on his own land, and others, evince a mildness and huma- 
nity scarcely to be expected in those rude times. 

From what has been said, it appears that the Danish 
part of England must, in William the Conqueror's time, 
have had just as many old Danish popular institutions as 
Normandy, nay, doubtless still more. It is, therefore, no 
wonder that William and his Normans were highly partial 
to the Danish laws then in force in England. Immedi- 
ately after he assumed the reins of government, he com- 
manded that these laws should be in force throughout the 
kingdom, and consequently even in the purely Anglo-Saxon 
districts, as both his own forefathers, and those of almost 
all his barons, had been Northmen, who had formerly emi- 



Sect. XIII.] DANISH LAWS AFTEE WILLIAMS CONQUEST. 167 

grated from Norway. But in an assembly held at London 
in the fourth year of his reign, he suffered himself to be 
persuaded, by the urgent entreaties of the leading men 
among the Anglo-Saxons, to restore the laws of Edward 
the Confessor in the districts in which they had before pre- 
vailed. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon laws gradually 
gave place to the Scandinavian institutions in force in the 
north of England. Thus duel, under the name of " trial 
by battle," came to be considered throughout .England as 
lawful proof in judicial suits ; an evident result of the bold 
and chivalrous spirit of the new Norman lords. This 
kind of proof caused, however, much disturbance in Eng- 
land, and at length, though tardily, grew out of use. It 
was not formally abolished by law till the year 1818, after 
a prosecutor had challenged his adversary to trial by battle; 
a proceeding which even the legal tribunals were obliged 
to acknowledge that the law, taken in its strictest sense, 
fully authorised him in adopting. It is, however, remark- 
able enough that the proof by duel, which in Scandinavia 
itself was abolished on the introduction of Christianity, 
should have maintained its ground for several centuries in 
England, which had long been Christianized. We might 
even say that down to the present times it has everywhere 
left perceptible traces in Europe. For what are duels but 
trials by battle, or sort of judgment of God? They were, 
however, much disseminated by chivalry, in the develop- 
ment of which the warlike Normans took so considerable a 
part. The ancient hohngang was, as we have seen, called, 
both in Normandy and England, " duel." 

The institution of the jury ("Nsevninger," or "Nsevn"), 
before mentioned as originally Scandinavian, was esta- 
blished throughout England by the Normans in such a 
manner that it has maintained its place to our times. 
Under the first Norman kings we find traces of a more 
general employment of the jury, which was previously 
confined to the Danish part of England, where it conti- 
nued to exist after the conquest by William. When, in 



168 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

the following century, holmgang"ox trial by battle, began, 
in spite of the limitations it had undergone, to become too 
grievous in England, a law was published in 1164, that a 
jury of twelve knights, chosen by four knights of the dis- 
trict, should be substituted in its place. Thus at its first 
general establishment in England the jury had much the 
same form as it possessed in earlier times in the Danish 
part of the kingdom. Tbe provision that the jury should 
be composed of knights soon fell to the ground. Subse- 
quently, after the ordeal by red-hot iron, or the judgment 
of God, had been abolished (in the year 1219), it was 
appointed, in the reign of Henry the Third, that the 
accused, who might previously have liberated himself by 
that ordeal, should submit his case to the decision of 
twelve NcBvninger, or jurymen. In this manner an influ- 
ence was secured to the jury in England, which has since 
been continually increasing ; trial by jury having become, 
as it were, the central point of the judicial system in 
that country. The English themselves, with just reason, 
regard the jury as a wise and happy institution, which has 
much contributed to develope the excellence of the national 
character, and to maintain the free constitution of their 
country. What is more, foreigners pass the same judg- 
ment on it ; and it especially deserves to be remembered, 
that at the present moment, after the introduction of 
popular freedom into the Scandinavian North, its people 
are seeking to re-establish the native Ncevn, or jury, which 
formerly crossed the seas with the conquerors of England 
and Normandy, and which has victoriously stood the trial 
of centuries in those countries. 

We have already seen it proved, from contemporary laws, 
that the germ of at least one of England's freest and most 
important institutions was to be found, as early as the ninth 
century, among the numerous Danes and Norwegians settled 
in that country, to whose successors and kinsmen may be 
justly ascribed the honour of further developing the insti- 
tution of trial by jury. In like manner contemporary 



Sect. XIII.] DOMESDAY-BOOK. 169 

chronicles bear witness that these Danish and Norwegian 
settlements in many ways essentially contributed to pro- 
mote political liberty and the spirit of freedom. Accord- 
ing to that remarkable document, Domesday-Book, there 
was, about twenty years after the Norman conquest, a 
greater number of independent landed proprietors, if not, 
in the strictest sense of the word, freeholders, in the 
districts occupied by the Danes, and under the Dane-lag, 
than in the other, or Anglo-Saxon, part of England. The 
smaller Anglo-Saxon agriculturists were frequently serfs, 
though, for the most part, perhaps, leaseholders, or hold- 
ing other subordinate situations ; whilst the Danish settlers, 
being conquerors, were mostly freemen, and, in general, 
proprietors of the soil. Domesday-Book mentions, under 
the name of " Sochmanni," a numerous class of land- 
owners, or peasants, in the Danish districts north-east of 
Watlinga- Street, who, to the south of that line, and even 
then only just upon the borders of it, are rarely to be 
found, (viz., in Buckinghamshire, 19, and in Surrey, 9). 
It also mentions a great number of freemen in those 
districts, or, as they are called in Latin, " liberi homines " 
Neither Sochmanni nor liberi homines seem, however, to 
have been freeholders, in the present sense of that term. 
They certainly stood in a sort of feudal relation to a 
superior lord ; but in such a manner that the " Sochmanni " 
may be best compared with our present hereditary lessees. 
Their farms passed by inheritance to their sons, they pay- 
ing certain rents, and performing certain feudal duties ; 
but the feudal lord had no power to dispose of the pro- 
perty as he pleased. 

The counties occupied by the Danes and Norwegians, 
viz., Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Cumber- 
land, and Lancashire, are not mentioned in Domesday- 
Book. In the other fifteen counties to the north and east 
of Watlinga- Strait, the " Sochmanni" and " liberi homines" 
are summed up as follows (see Turner's " History of the 
Anglo-Saxons") : — 

i 



70 THE 


DANES IN ENGLAND. 




[Sect. XI 


Essex .... 


Sochmanni .... 343 




liberi homines 






306 


Suffolk .... 


Sochmanni . . 
liberi homines . 






1,014 
8,012 


Norfolk .... 


Sochmanni 
liberi homines 






5,521 

4,981 


Cambridge . . . 


Sochmanni 






245 


Hertford . . . 


»> • 






57 


Bedford . . . 


>> 






88 


Northampton . . 


>» 






915 


Huntingdon . 


>» 






23 


Rutland . . . 


>> • 






2 


Leicester . . . 


»J 






1,716 


Derby . . . . 


>» 






127 


Nottingham . . 


J» 






1,565 


Lincoln . . . 


»> 






11,322 


Yorkshire . . . 


>» 






438 


Cheshire, drenches 


5> • • 






54 




Total 


. 36,729 



The so-called " freemen " (liberi homines), who, it may 
be assumed, most resembled our freeholders, seem from 
this to have been principally confined to Essex (306) and 
the ancient East Anglia, or Norfolk and Suffolk (together, 
12,993). " Sochmanni " were also very numerous in these 
three counties (together, 6878); yet they appear in the 
greatest numbers in the old Danish Lincolnshire, which 
alone had 11,322. In the other districts round the Danish 
five burghs, they were also pretty numerous : in Leicester- 
shire, 1716; and in Nottinghamshire, 1565. The number 
of these independent landowners was consequently greatest 
in the districts earliest occupied by the Danes, where they 
naturally sprung up from the Danish chiefs' parcelling out 
the soil to their victorious warriors. That the large county 
of York had not more than about 440 Sochmanni can 
hardly be used by way of counter-proof; partly because 



Sect. XIII.] DANISH FREEHOLDERS. 171 

Yorkshire had heen terribly exhausted in the wars of Wil- 
liam the Conqueror, which took place before Domesday- 
Book was compiled ; and partly because it is clear that 
Yorkshire is not so fully described in that document as the 
more southern counties. Lastly, it is remarkable that 
extremely few serfs are mentioned in the districts north 
east of Watlinga-Straet, in comparison of the many that are 
recorded in the south and south-west of England. 

English authors admit that the Danish settlers in Eng- 
land bestowed a great benefit on the country, in a political 
point of view, by the introduction of a numerous class of 
independent peasantry, who formed a striking contrast to 
the oppressed Anglo-Saxon commonalty. ("The Danes 
seem to have planted in the colonies they occupied a 
numerous race of freemen, and their counties seem to have 
been well peopled." — Turner.) But unfortunately the num- 
ber of Danish- Norwegian freeholders and freemen at that 
time in England cannot now be given more closely than by 
the above sum of 36,729, which is evidently too low, and 
in every respect highly inaccurate. 

It is, however, large enough to strengthen and throw 
light upon the statements of the chronicles, that the 
descendants of the Danes and Norwegians in the country 
to the north-east of Watlinga-Strset, especially distin- 
guished themselves by a lively feeling of freedom and in- 
dependence. From the time of their very first settle- 
ment, they desperately resisted every chief who attempted 
to deprive them of their rights as free and independent 
men. It was, indeed, but reasonable that they should, 
with persevering boldness, defend in a foreign land that 
freedom for the sake of which they had abandoned their 
Scandinavian homes. Their severest and most perilous 
struggle for liberty naturally took place after the destruction 
of the Danish power under Hardicanute (1 042) : although 
the extensive Danish tract north of the Humber still re- 
tained its Danish jarl, Siward. 

i 2 



172 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

But on Siward's death (1055), his son, Valthjof (Wal- 
theof), was too young to govern that important district, 
which was therefore made over to Toste Godvinson, who 
afterwards fell at Stamford Bridge. Toste ruled with 
despotic power, set aside the laws of Canute the Great, and 
levied taxes which were contrary to the people's ancient 
rights. The Northumbrians therefore deposed him at a 
Thing, and expelled him in 1064. When Toste 's brother, 
Harald, afterwards endeavoured to effect a reconciliation, 
on the condition that Toste should be reinstated in the 
earldom, the Northumbrians uuanimously rejected the 
proposal. " We were born and bred up in freedom," they 
exclaimed ; " a proud and ambitious chief we will not en- 
dure, for we have learnt from our fathers either to live like 
freemen or to die." 

When, two years afterwards, William began to conquer 
England, and to parcel it out among his warriors, it was 
chiefly the inhabitants of the old Danish districts who op- 
posed him with all the energy of despair. The successors 
of the Danes and Norwegians, under ordinary circum- 
stances, would have joined their kinsmen the Normans ; 
especially as they gave out that one of their objects in 
coming to England was to avenge their Danish and Nor- 
wegian relatives, secretly massacred by Ethelred. But 
the Normans aimed at nothing less than the abolition of 
the free tenure of estates, and the complete establishment 
of a feudal constitution ; a mode of proceeding which, by 
depriving the previously independent man of his right to 
house and land, and transferring it to powerful nobles, 
shook the very foundation of freedom. The descendants 
of the Danes turned from them, therefore, with disgust, 
and now no longer hesitated to enter into an alliance with 
the equally oppressed Anglo-Saxons; for the common 
danger made both races forget their ancient animosities. 
Many of the Anglo-Saxon chiefs and warriors who had 
been defeated by William in the west and south-west of 



Sect. XIII.] PROGRESS OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 173 

England, fled towards the north, and prepared, in conjunc- 
tion with the inhabitants of that district, to venture every- 
thing in self-defence. 

It was not till the year 1068 that the Normans suc- 
ceeded, after a severe contest, in taking Oxford, Warwick, 
and the old Danish burghs Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, 
Lincohi, and York. In these places, but especially in Lin^ 
coin and York, the Normans were obliged to build strong 
fortifications, for fear of the people of Scandinavian descent, 
who abounded both in the towns and in the adjacent rural 
districts. But what the Normans chiefly apprehended 
was, attacks from the Danes who, there was good reason to 
suppose, might come over with their fleets to the assist- 
ance of their countrymen in the north of England. 

Meantime, whilst the remains of the united Anglo- 
Saxon and Danish-Norwegian armies had withdrawn to 
the mountains of Northumberland, where they often sur- 
prised and killed whole detachments of Norman troops, 
numerous fugitives and messengers repaired to King Svend 
in Denmark, to implore him, in the name of his English 
friends, and in that of freedom, to assist them against Wil- 
liam the Conqueror. Svend sent his brother Asbjorn, 
and his sons Harald and Canute, over with a fleet, who, 
after a vain attempt to land at Sandwich, entered the 
Humber, in the year 1069. The Northumbrians, and the 
rest of the aggrieved inhabitants, both Northmen and 
Anglo-Saxons, flocked gladly together under the Danish 
banner. Edgar, who had been chosen king by the Anglo- 
Saxons, Valthjof (Waltheof), a son of the old Northum- 
brian jarl Siward, and many other fugitives, joined the 
Danish host. York was taken, the Normans put to flight, 
and their fortifications levelled with the ground. In these 
encounters Waltheof gained great honour for courage and 
bravery. 

But the joy of victory was only of short duration. Wil- 
liam, who had sworn in his anger to lay all Northumberland 
waste, knew how to avert by persuasion, cunning, and 



174 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

bribery, the danger that threatened him from Denmark. 
The Danish fleet went home in the spring ; and William 
retook York, and extended his dominion in Northumber- 
land ; where his progress was marked by slaughter, incen- 
diarism, and rapine. The unfortunate inhabitants fled to 
the forests and morasses ; their last place of refuge was 
the marshes near the Wash. Moved by the cries of com- 
plaint which continually reached him from England, the 
Danish king Svend again sent a number of vessels, which 
appeared in the Humber in the year 1074. But these 
were not able to render any effectual assistance. Waltheof, 
whom William, in order to conciliate the Northumbrians, 
had appointed Jarl in his father's earldom, fell under the 
axe of the executioner on suspicion of being concerned in 
this naval expedition; and fresh devastations promoted 
William's dominion over Northumberland, which was so 
terribly harassed that large districts were left without 
houses or human inhabitants. 

The forests of the north of England now became the 
last refuge of numberless outlaws, who would not submit 
to the ferocious conqueror, preferring a free and merry life 
in the green woods ; where they united together, and defied 
William's powerful armies and severe laws. They had 
secret connections among the people, who saw in them the 
last defenders of their ancient freedom. Among the leaders 
of these outlaws, who, long after William's time, continued 
to wander about in the English forests, but who were most 
numerous in the north of England, we meet with Scandi- 
navian names, such as Sweyn, and Sihtrik; and in the 
legends and songs which have preserved the remembrance 
of them, are found Scandinavian traits of character, such as 
the story of William of Cloudesley, who shot the apple 
from his son's head. It is the identical legend related in 
our old Sagas of the Scandinavian hero, Palnatoke. 

The last gleam of any well-founded hope of deliverance 
shone upon the successors of the Anglo-Saxons and Dan- 
ish-Norwegians in the north of England, when, in the year 



Sect, XIII.] EFFECTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 175 

1085, the Danish king Canute, afterwards called the Saint, 
assembled a powerful fleet in the Liimfjord, in order to 
release England from the Conqueror's yoke, and if possible 
to seat himself on the throne. Sixty Norwegian vessels 
had joined Canute's fleet. William, on his side, made great 
preparations in order to resist the expected attack. Dane- 
gelt was again collected for the defence of the kingdom 
against the Danes. The inhabitants of Scandinavian de- 
scent in the north of England were compelled to alter their 
dress, and to cut off their long beards, that the Danes 
might not thereby recognise their kinsmen. The coasts 
were occupied by soldiers, who erected strong defences ; 
whilst William at the same time endeavoured, by means of 
secret envoys and bribery, to sow disunion in the Danish 
fleet. Canute's progress was impeded by unfortunate cir- 
cumstances ; the fleet separated, and a mutiny broke out, 
which ended in the murder of Canute at Odensee, in the 
year 1086. No further attempt was made by Denmark to 
conquer England; for the expedition said to have been 
prepared by King Erik Lam in the year 1138 was, at all 
events, a very poor and unsuccessful one. Thus the North- 
men in England, being no longer able to obtain support 
from Denmark or Norway, were forced to submit to the 
Norman dominion. 

Nevertheless, in spite of the terrible devastations by 
which William coerced the north of England, " the half- 
Saxon half-Danish population of these districts" (says 
the French historian, Thierry) " long continued to preserve 
their old feeling of independence and their ancient indo- 
mitable pride. The Norman kings who succeeded the 
Conqueror dwelt with perfect safety in the southern dis- 
tricts, but did not venture north of the Humber without 
some fear; and a chronicler, who lived at the close of the 
twelfth century, assures us that they never visited that 
part of the kingdom without being accompanied by a 
strong army." 

Although no very great number of Northmen, or men 



176 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

of Scandinavian extraction, could have remained in Nor- 
mandy after William's conquest of England, and after the 
Norman expeditions into Italy, yet even these few, as we 
have before stated, were subsequently able to impart to the 
popular spirit in Normandy a peculiar Scandinavian 
colouring. The Norman knights distinguished themselves 
from the effeminate, dreaming, and excitable knights of 
the south of France, not only by a greater inclination for 
adventures and a bolder martial spirit, but also by a 
genuine Scandinavian sedateness and an all-subduing per- 
severance. The old Scandinavian feeling of freedom 
revealed itself, even in the middle ages, in the cities of 
Normandy, which were long the seats of a democratic 
spirit and of republican movements. According to Wil- 
liam the Conqueror's own statement, the ancient Normans, 
and, above all, their Scandinavian forefathers, were, in a 
high degree, quarrelsome and litigious ; and, even to this 
day, Normandy is remarkable, above all other provinces of 
France, for the great number of law-suits which annually 
take place in it. Frenchmen themselves have remarked 
that their most skilful and persevering seamen are to be 
found among the inhabitants of Dieppe, and that the 
most celebrated admirals of France have been natives of 
Normandy. 

If such was the influence of the Normans in France, 
were not the Danes and Norwegians, who had been settled 
for centuries in England, in a still better position to fix a 
lasting stamp upon the life and character of the people ; 
more particularly as the Danish-Norwegian elements con- 
tinued, long after the Norman conquest, to exercise a very 
considerable influence in England ? We may truly assert 
that the Scandinavian spirit is still clearly to be discerned, 
not merely in separate districts, but throughout England. 
The love of the English for bold adventures, especially at 
sea, their unshaken calmness in the greatest dangers, their 
apparent coolness during the most violent emotions, and 
their proud feeling of freedom, are surely not to be ascribed 



I 



Sect. XIII.] EFFECTS OF DANISH INFLUENCE. 177 

exclusively to the Normans. These qualities must, in 
a great degree, be attributed to the English, as the 
descendants of those Danish and Norwegian warriors who 
sought dangers on unknown seas; who looked death 
steadily in the face, come in whatever shape it might; 
who gloried in the feeling that their countenances should 
not betray the passions which fermented in their breasts ; 
and who prized liberty far more than life. 

It deserves at least to be mentioned, as affording a 
remarkable analogy to Normandy, that England's most 
celebrated and successful admiral, Nelson, bore a genuine 
Scandinavian name (Nielsen, with the characteristic 
Scandinavian termination of son, or so7i). He was, be- 
sides, a native of one of the districts early colonized by the 
Danes, having been born in the town of Burnham-thorpe, 
in Norfolk, or East Anglia. In fact, the perceptible dif- 
ference of character still actually found between the people 
in old Saxon South-England and in the more northern old 
Danish districts, is very remarkable. The southern Eng- 
lishman is softer and more compliant. The northern 
Englishman is of a firmness of character, bordering on the 
hard and severe, and possesses an unusually strong feeling 
of freedom. The Yorkshireman is well known in England 
as a hasty and touchy, but determined and independent, 
character. Great political movements have therefore not 
only found reception and encouragement among the popu- 
lation of the north of England ; but this population, from the 
interest it takes in the progress of public affairs, and from its 
love of freedom, has played a leading part in the great in- 
ternal revolutions which mark the recent political history of 
England. Public men regard it as a great honour to 
represent the northern districts of England in Parliament 
(for instance, the West Riding of Yorkshire), merely from 
the intelligent political character of the voters ; and it is 
certainly through the adherence of the lovers of freedom 
in the north, that Cobden has been able to struggle so 
successfully for the promotion of free trade, for financial 

i 3 



178 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIII. 

reform, and for similar liberal measures. That this spirit 
of liberty in the north of England is chiefly derived from 
the old Scandinavian colonists is by no means merely the 
partial assertion of a Dane. The celebrated English 
writer, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, who, in his " Harold," has 
successfully begun to awaken the attention of his country- 
men to a juster view of the Danish conquest, says in a 
note appended to that work : " It might be easy to show, 
were this the place, that though the Anglo-Saxons never 
lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which 
gradually regained liberty from the gripe of the Anglo- 
Norman kings were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristo- 
cracy. And even to this day, the few rare descendants of 
that race (whatever their political faction) will generally 
exhibit that impatience of despotic influence, and that 
disdain of corruption, which characterize the homely 
bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognise the 
sturdy likeness of our fathers ; while it is also remarkable 
that the modern inhabitants of those portions of the 
kingdom originally peopled by the Danes, are, irrespectively 
of mere party divisions, noted for their intolerance of all 
oppression, and their resolute independence of character ; 
to wit, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Cumberland, and large districts 
in the Scottish lowlands." 

It would be impossible to deny that the Danes and 
Norwegians settled in England before the arrival of the 
Normans not only essentially contributed to the preserva- 
tion of popular liberty — which, through the weakness and 
effeminacy of the Anglo-Saxons, was threatened with 
destruction — but that they also laid the foundation of its 
further development, and powerfully contributed to its 
complete establishment. We need, therefore, be no longer 
surprised that memorials of the Danes are mixed up with 
England's freest and most liberal institutions ; and that to 
the present day, for instance, the place whence the candi- 
dates for a seat in Parliament address the electors, bears, 
throughout England, the pure Danish name " husting." 



Sect. XIV. j RECAPITULATION. 179 



Section XIV. 

General View. — Anglo-Saxon and Danish-Norman England. — 
Sympathies for Denmark. — The Dane in England. 

The various kinds of Danish and Danish- Norwegian 
memorials which I have alluded to, such as names of 
places, coins, and peculiarities of language (not to mention 
contemporary letters -patent and laws), afford so many- 
incontrovertible proofs that the Danish influence in Eng- 
land was neither of short duration, nor, on the whole, of a 
transient nature. Future and more successful investiga- 
tions and comparisons, more particularly in England itself, 
will undoubtedly much extend the circle of known Danish 
memorials existing there. So much, however, is already- 
placed beyond all doubt, that in no country out of the 
present homes of the Scandinavian race have its colonists 
left such various, such considerable, and such clear traces 
of their existence, as the Danes, especially, have left in 
England. The Scandinavian spirit has not ruled with so 
much power in any other, still less in any greater, Euro- 
pean kingdom; nor been able to retain so powerful a 
dominion for such a length of time. 

The Danes, and their successors the Normans, did not 
content themselves with the temporary overthrow of the 
Anglo-Saxon dominion ; they annihilated it for ever. In 
this the Danes may be said to have been more active than 
the Normans. They not only gradually settled themselves 
under their own laws and their own chiefs, in half of 
England, but spread themselves over the whole of it. 
In the time of Alfred the Great, they once held all Eng- 
land in subjection; and at an early period obtained places 
amongst the highest ecclesiastical and secular aristocracy 
of the country. In the tenth century, the Anglo-Saxon 
king Edgar favoured the Danes so much, that during his 
reign the Danish power had an opportunity to consolidate 
and extend itself. Even the Anglo-Saxon royal family 



180 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIV- 

became mixed with Danish blood. Among the Anglo- 
Saxons, both high and low, weakness and proneness to 
vice went on continually increasing; whilst the Danish 
dominion, prepared by two centuries of independent Viking 
expeditions, and by the subsequent settlements of the 
Northmen, established itself completely, as soon as the 
sea kings and wandering Vikings were succeeded by 
Danish monarchs with considerable fleets at their com- 
mand. 

All England yielded to the conqueror Canute, and under 
his wise, powerful, and just administration, enjoyed that 
tranquillity and happiness of which it had long felt the 
want. The Anglo-Saxons and Danes now became more 
amalgamated. But Canute's sons wanted their fathers 
ability and strength of purpose. The old dissensions and 
quarrels broke out afresh ; whilst violent internal disturb- 
ances in the newly Christianized Scandinavian North, 
where the Viking spirit became extinguished, deprived the 
Danes in England of the succour necessary in their con- 
tests with the natives. The Danish power in England 
fell, but left the population completely mixed and satu- 
rated with Danish elements. The Anglo-Saxon royal race, 
as it was called, was now half Danish. The higher clergy 
and nobility were connected by the closest ties of relation- 
ship with the Danes and their chiefs, in whose hands 
several of the most important fiefs remained. The Danes 
had acquired considerable influence in many of the largest 
cities ; and in about half of England the majority of the 
population was of Danish extraction, and possessed Danish 
laws and other Danish characteristics. The Danes who, 
naturally enough, could not forget that they had been 
absolute masters in that conquered land, obeyed unwil- 
lingly a king of another race, though they had not the 
power to place one of their own race upon the throne. 
The unmixed Saxon population, on the other hand, could 
not endure that the royal sceptre should continue to be 
borne, in the once independent country of their forefathers, 



Sect. XIT.] ANTECEDENTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 181 

by foreign conquerors from Denmark, whose power, be- 
sides, seemed at that time on the wane. Inward dissen- 
sions increased ; the kings were too feeble to maintain 
efficiently their difficult position; and the power falling 
more and more out of the hands of the degenerate Anglo- 
Saxons, passed over to the stronger Danes and their 
Norman kinsmen. 

With an unmixed population, England would have been 
able to maintain herself united and powerful in the hour 
of danger, and when threatened by foreign conquerors. 
But split and divided as she now was among different 
races contending for the mastery, real unanimity was 
impossible ; and, in case of a powerful attack from without, 
dissolution was inevitable. Through the Danish expedi- 
tions, the Danish colonizations, and finally through the 
fall of the Danish supremacy, it became practicable for 
William of Normandy to conquer England with an army 
of only 60,000 men. Had not those events prepared the 
way, it would be inconceivable that with such a force a 
foreign conqueror should have been able to subdue a 
country so extensive, so well peopled, and so favoured by 
nature ; still less that he should have succeeded in retain- 
ing such a conquest for any length of time. William won 
the battle of Hastings, which decided the fate of Eng- 
land, only because Harald Godvinson's Anglo-Saxon army 
entered the field weakened and exhausted by the sangui- 
nary battle of Stamford Bridge. This was fought against 
the Norwegian king, Harald Haardraade, and the dis- 
contented Scandinavians in the north of England, who 
wanted to re-establish a king of their own race on the 
English throne. 

The Danish-Norwegian settlements, and the Danish 
dominion in England, by subduing for a time the political 
power of the Anglo-Saxons, had not only prepared the way 
for the first victory of the Normans, but also for the future 
progress and establishment of the Norman power in Eng- 
land, and especially for the ultimate triumph of the 



182 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIV. 

Norman popular spirit over the remains of the ancient 
Saxon nationality. The Danes, by expelling the Anglo- 
Saxons from the northern and eastern parts of England, 
as well as by mixing with them in the south, had by degrees 
undermined their national independence and their popular 
characteristics, and had thus prepared an entrance for the 
Scandinavian spirit, which was so nearly allied to the 
Norman, into a great, if not the greater, portion of the 
English population. The bold and chivalrous spirit of the 
Norman aristocracy, their love of daring adventures, and 
their lofty feeling of freedom, completely agreed with the 
characteristics of the Scandinavians settled in England at 
an earlier period. The Normans found among the Scandi- 
navian population of England, and particularly the Danish 
portion of it, several of those free institutions already in 
full force which they themselves, with much advantage to 
liberty, afterwards extended to the whole country. 

Thus the conquest of England by Danish-Normans, 
undoubtedly prepared, or, more properly speaking, was the 
indispensable and necessary foundation of the subsequent 
French-Norman conquest ; and it may therefore be justly 
called the first act of that great historical drama, " The 
Norman Conquest," of which William of Normandy's con- 
quest is only the concluding act. 

But many will undoubtedly ask, was the Norman con- 
quest, on the whole, beneficial to England ? Would it not 
have been better had the Anglo-Saxon nationality been 
permitted to develope itself, instead of being arrested by 
such violent devastations and by such bloodshed as the 
Danish-Norman expeditions occasioned ? And is it not a 
proof of the nobleness of the Anglo-Saxon nationality, that 
it has since prevailed so preponderantly in England ? 

On this point let us hear a learned and impartial Eng- 
lishman. The latest and most celebrated Anglo-Saxon 
historian, Mr. Kemble, says, in his preface to the before- 
mentioned Collection of Anglo-Saxon Diplomas : — " With 
the close of the fourth volume of this work we arrive at the 



Sect. XIV.] UTILITY OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 183 

reign of Harald, and the Norman conquest of England; 
an event which our contemporary forefathers could only- 
regard as deplorable, but which we must look back upon 
with gratitude and pride, as the remote origin of our own 
peculiar character and power. It is hardly possible to com- 
pare the signatures to the charters contained respectively 
in this and in the previous volumes, without seeing how 
widely a foreign element had become predominant. The 
Scandinavians of Ingwar, GuSorm, Swegen, and Cnut, suc- 
cessively prepared the way for the descendants of other 
Scandinavians under William; and the Saxon national 
character, like the national dynasty, was too weak to offer 
a successful resistance. Defeated, yet still holding a por- 
tion of its domain with unabated perseverance, yielding 
somewhat in one place, to break out with unshaken obsti- 
nacy at another, it accommodated itself partially to the 
peculiar habits of each successive invader; till, after the 
closing scene of the great drama commenced at Hastings, 
it ceased to exist as a national character, and the beaten, 
ruined, and demoralized Anglo-Saxon, found himself 
launched in a new career of honour, and rising into all the 
might and dignity of an Englishman. Let us reflect that 
defeats upon the Thames and Avon were probably neces- 
sary preliminaries to victories upon the Sutlej." 

The weakness and degeneracy of the Anglo-Saxon 
national character contained the seeds of its decay. It has 
long since been agreed that, in an historical view, we 
ought not to complain that the degenerate, though highly- 
civilized, Eomans in Britain were compelled to make way 
for the rude Anglo-Saxons, since the latter brought with 
them the germ of a new and higher development. In like 
manner we can hardly regret that the degenerate, but to a 
certain degree civilized, Anglo-Saxons, were in turn ex- 
pelled by the more powerful, but ruder Danes ; since these 
also were to prepare, and lay the foundation of, a new and 
more flourishing state of society. Under the reign of 
Ethelred the Second, the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxons had 



184 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIV. 

already passed away. As a people, they sank entirely, and 
left only a part of their civilization and of their institu- 
tions to their successors in dominion, the Danes and Nor- 
mans. The transition took place amidst the same shocks 
and the same bloodshed which still mark every important 
and radical revolution in the history of nations. The 
Danish- Norman, or perhaps more properly, the Scandi- 
navian national character, usurped the place of the Anglo- 
Saxon. It was certainly built upon the foundation laid by 
the Anglo-Saxons, but it must be observed that it has made 
greater progress in all respects. To it especially is owing 
the development in England of a maritime skill before 
unknown, of a bold and manly spirit of enterprise, and of 
a political liberty, which, by preserving a balance between 
the freedom of the nobles and of the rest of the people, 
has long ensured to England a powerful and comparatively 
peaceful and fortunate existence. 

The Englishman is justly proud of his native land, of 
its internal freedom, and external greatness. But when 
he extols his country in respect only of its being " Anglo- 
Saxon," or praises the merits of the Anglo-Saxons and 
Norman-French, whilst he unconditionally condemns the 
Danish expeditions and settlements, as having been merely 
devastating and destructive, he commits both an historical 
error and an evident injustice. The Anglo-Saxons per- 
formed their share in the civilization of England, and the 
Norman-French did still more ; but it ought not to be for- 
gotten — and least of all by Englishmen, who are so nearly 
related to the Danes — that the latter also very essentially 
contributed to win freedom and greatness for England, and 
that this freedom, and this greatness, are in no slight 
degree sealed with Danish blood. From at least the 
Danish-Normanic conquest (about the year 1000), the 
Danish-Normanic, or Scandinavian, national character has 
been the prevailing and leading one in England's history, 
and so it certainly continues to be at the present day. 

A perceptible and very remarkable evidence of this is 



Sect. XIV.l ENGLISH SYMPATHY FOE DENMARK. 185 

the sympathy which the English people in general feel for 
the North, the ancient home of their fathers, and particu- 
larly for Denmark. The Englishman himself will gene- 
rally aver, with a sort of pride, that he derives his descent 
from the North. A Dane travelling in England will every- 
where find an unusually cordial reception. He will in 
general be regarded more as a countryman than as a 
foreigner, merely because he is a Dane. He will discover 
that the English, instead of having forgotten their kinsmen 
beyond the sea, with whom they were formerly united, feel 
themselves attracted to them by the ties of blood and 
friendship. He will continually hear complaints of the 
deplorable attitude which the policy of England assumed 
with regard to Denmark at the commencement of the 
present century ; and he will adopt the conviction that in 
this mistaken policy, the people themselves, at least, were 
not to blame. He will at times be induced to forget that 
he is at a distance from his native land and from his 
nearest relatives; for the highly-striking agreement be- 
tween the character of the English and that of their Scan- 
dinavian kinsmen causes a Dane to imagine that he is 
still among his own friends, in the home which he has long 
since left. It was certainly also something more than mere 
accident that, during the last war in Denmark, the Danish 
cause nowhere, out of the North itself, awakened such 
general sympathy among the people, nor found so many 
bold champions, both in speeches and publications, as in 
England. May we not in these facts trace the effects of 
near relationship, and perceive the ties of blood ? 

It should not pass altogether unnoticed that the sympa- 
thies of the English for Denmark, and their fraternal feel- 
ing towards the Danish people, have increased in propor- 
tion as they have been obliged to acknowledge that the 
Danes of modern times still know how to defend their 
independence, liberty, and honour, with the bravery in- 
herited from their forefathers. Not to speak of the last 
contest, so glorious for Denmark, it is particularly the 



186 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIV. 

battle in Copenhagen Koads, the 2nd of April, 1801, which 
has maintained in England the ancient fame of Danish 
valour. The English regard this action not only as one 
of Nelson's greatest triumphs, but as one of their most 
glorious naval battles, particularly on account of the 
sturdy resistance which they encountered. On Nelson's 
monument in Westminster Abbey, on which his most 
glorious battles are recorded, that of Copenhagen is named 
first. Nelson himself describes the action as the bloodiest 
and most desperate he had ever beheld. That he is correct 
in this respect, and that he has not extolled the bravery of 
our nation merely to enhance his own, we Danes, at least, 
cannot doubt, since we cannot even admit that the battle 
must be unconditionally regarded as lost by us. 

For the rest, it is remarkable how frequently the Eng- 
lish confound the battle in Copenhagen Koads in 1801 with 
the carrying off of our fleet in 1807, and place these two 
entirely distinct events under one and the same head. 
The English historians have endeavoured gradually to 
conceal the dishonour attaching to the robbery of our fleet 
in 1807 ; and this has even been carried to such an extent, 
that the rising generation but too often reckons that igno- 
minious act amongst Nelson's triumphs. They imagine 
that the surrender of our fleet was the result of the battle 
in the Roads ; and yet Nelson had fallen two years before, 
at the battle of Trafalgar, in 1805. Fortunately for his 
honour, he was thus spared from partaking in the robbery 
of the fleet of a nearly-related people, with whom England 
was at peace. 

But this is not the only error which the Dane must 
correct when he hears in England the name of Nelson 
extolled at the expense of Denmark and of historical 
truth. Yet he will find it difficult to refute another 
similar mistake, namely, a firm belief in Nelson's " com- 
plete victory " in the battle of 1801. It is just as unshaken 
an article of faith among the British people that Nelson 
then gained a brilliant victory, as it is an acknowledged 



Sect. XIV.] NELSON IN COPENHAGEN ROADS. 187 

certainty, founded on fact, that at all events the battle was 
neither won by the English nor lost by the Danes. Nay 
it is certain that almost the whole of Nelson's fleet would 
have been destroyed, or taken, if the Crown Prince of Den- 
mark — for fear of engaging in a lengthened war with Eng- 
land, and from other purely political reasons, as well as, 
it must also be observed, at Nelson's own request — had not 
put a stop to the battle. Curiously enough, in two of the 
finest poems which the English and Danish people can 
produce, Campbell's " Battle of the Baltic," and Hertz's 
" Slaget paa Bheden," the combat is represented in each 
as honourable to the respective nations. 

Not long since, a Dane in England was led into a warm 
argument respecting the disputed result of this battle; 
when the master of the house suddenly recollected that 
an old invalid, who looked after the boats on the canals in 
the garden, had served under Nelson. He called out to 
him that " here was a Dane, and that he had certainly 
seen that sort of folks before." "Yes, master," answered 
the honest tar, " but on that day the Danes made it much 
hotter than we liked." 

This terminated the dispute. The time, however, in 
the order of Nature, cannot be far distant when the Dane 
in England may look in vain for such support from men 
who were present at the battle. He must then be con- 
tented to state his opinion, without the least hope of its 
carrying any weight ; though he can, at all events, console 
himself with the reflection that, when the conversation turns 
on the mutual relations between England and Denmark, 
the latter may point to conquests of a very different, 
as well as far more important and altogether undisputed 
kind. 

In the long series of brilliant victories, won not only by 
the Danish sword, but by the Danish national character 
in England, and which, by the conquest of that country, 
essentially contributed to found there a greatness and a 
power before unknown, the Danish people possess memo- 



188 THE DANES IN ENGLAND. [Sect. XIV. 

rials so proud and brilliant, that they may be reckoned 
among the most beautiful ornaments in that glorious wreath 
which from time immemorial encircles the Danish name. 
We may safely leave them by the side of the best and most 
imposing memorials of most other nations. 



THE 



NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND 



Section I. 

Nature of Scotland. — The Highlands and Lowlands. — Population. — 
Original Inhabitants. 

None of the seas of Europe are so rough and stormy as 
that which washes its northern and north-western coasts. 
Even in Jutland the effects of the cold north-west wind 
which sweeps down from the icy sea between Norway, Ice- 
land, and Scotland, are severely felt. Along its west coast, 
for a distance of several miles inland, there are no woods, 
but only low stunted oak bushes, which in many places 
scarcely rise above the tall heather. Still farther east- 
ward, and even in Funen and Zealand, which the north- 
west wind does not reach till it has passed over considerable 
tracts of land, it has such an influence on the woods, that 
in their western outskirts the trees are bent, and as it were 
scorched or blighted at the top. The North Sea, whose 
surges, breaking on the coast of Jutland, are heard even 
in calm weather far in the interior, rises to a fearful height 
during a storm. It would long since have washed over 
Jutland, and perhaps the whole of Denmark, if Nature had 
not placed sand-banks or shoals along the coast, as a sort 
of bulwark, against which the highest waves break harm- 
lessly. 

The North Sea is, however, an enclosed one, and little 



190 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. I. 

more than a bay of the Atlantic. Its swell is not so great, 
nor its storms so violent, as those of the open sea beyond, 
towards the north and west ; where the Atlantic breaks on 
one side against Greenland and North America, and on the 
other against Norway, Scotland, and Ireland. The sand- 
banks and shoals which form a sufficient defence for Jut- 
land against the North Sea, would there scarcely be able 
to resist the open and agitated ocean. On the extreme 
north-western coasts of Europe, the Atlantic has com- 
pletely washed away the earth and sand ; the bare cliffs, 
which often rise to a considerable height, alone remain, 
and still defy the fury of the waves. These rocky coasts, 
with their numerous towering and ragged crags, with 
their many and deeply-indented fiords, convey an idea 
of the power and greatness of the sea as striking as it is 
true. Everywhere outside lie rocky islands, which, like 
outposts, stop the advancing waves, and only allow them, 
if with increased speed, yet with diminished power, to ap- 
proach the land through narrow channels, or sounds. 
During violent storms some of the islands are flooded by 
the sea, which, as it rolls forwards, strives to overtop the 
cliffs ; whence it glides back, again to repeat the same vain 
attempt. The firm, rocky, isle-bound coasts of Norway, 
Scotland, and Ireland, are evidently for Europe what the 
sand banks and sboals of Jutland are for Denmark. 

It is natural, therefore, that those countries which in the 
north-westernmost part of Europe lie farthest out towards 
the Atlantic Ocean — such as the Scandinavian Peninsula, 
Scotland, Ireland, and part of England — should have their 
highest and wildest mountains and cliffs towards the west, 
and in the neighbourhood of the sea. This is more clearly 
seen the farther we proceed northwards : namely, in the 
Scandinavian Peninsula and in Scotland. 

In Norway the rocks often rise almost perpendicularly 
out of the sea. In the neighbourhood of the coast they 
reach a considerable height, and then sink gradually to- 
wards the east, until they lose themselves in the broad and 



Sect. I.] NATURE OF SCOTLAND. 191 

comparatively low valleys of Sweden. Whole rows of 
islands lie scattered along the west coast of Norway, round 
which the sea often whirls in impetuous eddies. On the 
coast itself, where the land is most exposed to the bleak 
sea winds, such extensive forests are not to be seen as in 
the interior of the country ; nor do any fertilizing streams 
wind their way through the short and narrow valleys. It 
is only here and there that the water from the rocky springs 
or melted snows, leaps, after a short course, over the edge 
of the cliff into the open sea, or into the deep fiords with 
which the coasts are everywhere indented. The greatest 
rivers in Norway take a more eastern course, and often 
make their way from the Norwegian highlands through the 
richly-wooded lowlands of Sweden to the Baltic. In 
Sweden the coasts are neither so steep nor so indented as 
in Norway. The waves of the enclosed and comparatively 
quiet Baltic do not require to be resisted like those of the 
Atlantic Ocean. 

Very similar features are found in Scotland. The whole 
of the northern and western coast lying towards the At- 
lantic is wild and rocky, with numerous islands, deep firths, 
and steep shores ; behind which, rock towers upon rock, as 
if to form an impenetrable barrier against the sea. The 
country is almost without forests, the streams and the valleys 
are of small extent, and fertility consequently very limited. 
But by degrees the rocks sink down towards the south-east 
and east, till they terminate in the broad, well-watered, 
and fertile coast districts along the North Sea ; which, on 
account of their inconsiderable elevation, are called the 
Lowlands of Scotland. Thus the Highlands answer very 
nearly to Norway, and the Lowlands to Sweden. But as the 
Scandinavian Peninsula is larger than Scotland, so also are 
its natural features on the whole on a grander scale. The 
rocks of Norway are mountains of primitive granite, which 
in some places rise to a height of 8000 feet, and of which 
large ranges are covered with eternal snow and ice. Scot- 
land, on the contrary, has transition rocks, whose highest 



192 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. I. 

peak, Ben Nevis, which is only somewhat more than 4300 
feet above the sea, is not even always covered with snow. 
Nor can the Scottish Lowlands be compared as to extent 
to the Swedish valleys, with their immense forests and 
their large rivers and lakes. Nevertheless the natural 
features of Scotland are in their way no less beautiful than 
those of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The sea, which in- 
dents the coasts on all sides ; the well-cultivated, and partly 
also well- wooded plains, which, particularly towards the 
mountain districts, undulate in hill and dale ; and lastly the 
Highland itself, with its many streams, waterfalls, firths, 
and lakes, afford the richest and most magnificent variety. 
To these features may be added a milder climate, and in the 
Lowlands a far richer fertility, than in Norway and Sweden ; 
which have considerably contributed to give the landscapes 
of Scotland, even in the wildest districts of the Highlands, 
a somewhat softer tinge than is found in the high Scandi- 
navian North. 

A very marked difference exists between the Scottish 
Highlands and Lowlands, not only with regard to the na- 
ture of the country, but also to the original descent and the 
characteristics of the present population. The Lowlands, 
which are the seat of a highly-developed agricultural, do- 
mestic, and manufacturing industry, are inhabited by a 
strong and laborious people, speaking a peculiar dialect of 
the English language, and descended partly from the Celtic 
Scots, but more particularly from immigrant Anglo-Saxons, 
Danes, Norwegians, Normans, and Flemings. Commerce 
and trade, carried on by means of canals, railways, steam- 
ships, and similar easy means of communication, thrive 
vigorously in large and wealthy cities. 

The Highlands, on the contrary, which only a century 
ago were almost inaccessible from the land side, have 
scarcely a large town. Rocks and heaths are found instead 
of the fruitful fields of the Lowlands. With the exception 
of a few districts farthest towards the north-east, where the 
soil is more fertile, there are only seen in the valleys, 



Sect. I.] SCOTCH HIGHLANDS. 193 

along the firths, and by the sea, small fields of barley and 
oats, which would not yield the most scanty subsistence to 
the poor inhabitants if the rocks did not afford pasture 
for cattle and numerous flocks of sheep ; and if the sea, 
the firths, which abound with fish, as well as the rivers and 
lakes, did not contribute some part of their riches. The 
hardy Highland Scots, a great part of whom do not under- 
stand, or at all events do not speak English, but still com- 
monly use the Celtic or Gaelic tongue, live here thinly 
scattered in poor and low peat cabins, which it is often dif- 
ficult to distinguish from the surrounding rocks. The 
Highlanders in the districts farthest towards the west and 
north have preserved their language and other national 
characteristics purest ; for farther towards the Lowlands, a 
more modern civilization has gradually forced its way for- 
wards, in spite of the mountains. The old warlike dress 
which formerly distinguished the Highlander, particularly 
so long as clanship was in full vigour, has, since the anni- 
hilation of that system, become every day more rare. The 
kilt, or short skirt, has almost entirely given place to more 
modern clothing ; the tartan plaid alone is still seen 
wrapped in the old fashion round the shoulders of the 
Highlander. 

In our days the various tribes of the Highland and 
Lowland populations live in peaceful union under one and 
the same government. But during several centuries 
Scotland was the theatre of the most sanguinary contests 
between the Celtic Highlanders and the Teutonic Low- 
landers. The former, who were animated with an inveterate 
hatred of the Lowlanders, continually made hostile incur- 
sions into the Lowlands, and, after burning and rava- 
ging the country, retired with cattle and other booty to 
their mountains, whither they knew well the Lowlanders 
durst not follow them. The exasperation and hatred of 
the Highlanders were not entirely without foundation. 
In ancient times they had been sole masters in Scotland, 
from the Cheviot Hills to the Orkneys and the Shetland 



194 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. I.' 

Isles, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea ; and 
the} r had retained this mastery even long after their kins- 
men, the Britons in England, had been compelled to yield 
to the Romans and Anglo-Saxons. 

The celebrated Koman commander, Agricola, had, it is 
true, in the first century after the birth of Christ, made 
his way so far into the Lowlands that, as a defence against 
the Highlanders — the much-dreaded Caledonians, or Picts 
— he constructed a wall with a deep ditch before it, from 
the Firth of Forth to that of Clyde, in the low tract 
through which the Glasgow Canal has since been con- 
ducted. The Romans even extended their conquests far- 
ther northwards, as far as Burghead on the Moray Firth, 
to which place they formed regular high roads. But they 
were not able to defend themselves against the persevering 
attacks of the Caledonians, or Picts, and were soon obliged 
to retreat to the south of the Cheviot Hills ; where the 
great wall, with its many towers and deep ditches, which 
they had built from the Solway Firth to the River Tyne, 
became their chief defence against the harassing inroads of 
the Highland warriors. But this wall also was surmounted 
by the Picts, whose courage and daring increased in pro- 
portion as the power of the Romans, both at home and 
abroad, was rapidly waning. At last the Picts destroyed 
the wall, and after the fall of the Roman dominion, made 
incursions into England, where neither the descendants of 
the Romans, nor the Britons, found any means to repel 
them. It was not till the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Eng- 
land that the Picts were again compelled to fly towards 
the north over the Cheviot Hills, where they found suffi- 
cient employment in defending their own homes. 

For, whilst they were spreading themselves over the 
rich plains of the north of England, a foreign, though 
nearly related, Celtic people, the Scots from Ireland, had 
taken possession of their south-western frontier districts. 
Hence they spread themselves to such a degree over the 
Lowlands that both these and the Highlands, though the 



Sect. II.] SAXON IMMIGRATIONS INTO SCOTLAND. 195 

latter were almost entirely independent of the Scottish 
sovereigns, were called by one name, Scotland. After 
many battles the older Pictish inhabitants were, about the 
year 900, entirely amalgamated with the Scots in the 
Lowlands. Meanwhile a storm had gathered which 
threatened no less danger to the Scots in the Lowlands, 
than to their kinsmen, the Picts, in the Highlands. The 
dominion of the Celts, which had long before ceased in 
other and more accessible lands, was no longer to find a 
sure place of refuge even in Scotland, though its coasts 
were protected by the stormy Northern Sea, and its in- 
terior filled with rocks and warlike men. 



Section II. 

The Anglo-Saxons. — The Danes and Norwegians. — Effects of their 
Expeditions. 

The same want of unity and the same internal disputes 
which had brought ruin on the Celts in other places, pre- 
pared the way for foreign conquerors in Scotland. An 
indomitable fate decreed that the newer and higher civili- 
zation of Christianity should here, as in the rest of 
Europe, be founded and promoted by a Teutonic people. 
But though the Anglo-Saxons had conquered almost all 
England, they were not able, by their own power, to. 
subdue the Celts in Scotland. The Anglo-Saxon kings 
undertook, indeed, several expeditions against that country, 
in which they were at times pretty successful ; but they 
were not able to hold steady possession even of the Low- 
lands. Subsequently, however, the Anglo-Saxons wan- 
dered by degrees, and in a more peaceful manner, from 
the northernmost parts of England over the Scottish 
border, and established themselves both in the towns and 
in the rural districts. The number of these emigrants 
appears to have increased very considerably after the con- 
ic 2 



196 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. II. 

quests of the Danes and Norwegians in the midland and 
northern districts of England in the ninth and tenth cen- 
turies, when a great part of the Anglo-Saxons were driven 
from their old dwellings, and obliged to fly towards the 
north. Saxon institutions may even have been introduced 
into the Lowlands in the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
after an expedition of the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar. 
But the rocky highlands of the interior constantly defied 
all conquest ; and the northern and western coasts, toge- 
ther with the surrounding islands, could be subdued only 
by considerable fleets, which the Anglo-Saxons did not 
possess. 

But what in this respect the Anglo-Saxons were obliged 
to leave undone, was for the most part accomplished by 
the warlike and shrewd men of the Scandinavian North, 
who were then masters of the sea. Even from the oldest 
times, connections, both of a warlike and peaceful nature, 
had existed between Scotland and the opposite shores of 
Scandinavia. The old Sagas, for instance, bear witness 
that the Danish king Frode's daughter, Ulfhilde, was 
married to " the founder of the Scottish kingdom ;" and 
that the Danish prince Amleth (Hamlet) married the 
Scotch queen, Hermuntrude. From Denmark, moreover, 
and particularly from Jutland, many colonists afterwards 
emigrated to the Scotch Lowlands, whose coasts were, 
besides, plundered by the Danish Vikings. 

The Danish colonists, even in the north of England, 
were much mixed with Norwegians, and this was still more 
the case in the Scottish Lowlands, The more north the 
districts lay, the farther were they removed from Denmark, 
and the nearer did they approach Norway; whilst the 
features of the country much more resembled the Nor- 
wegian fiords, valleys, and rocks. Whilst, therefore, the 
Scandinavian colonists in the Lowlands were of Norwegian- 
Danish descent, the Highlands and islands farthest towards 
the north and west, were conquered, and in part peopled, 
by Norwegians only. This happened about the same time 



Sect. II.] NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENTS. 197 

as the Danish conquests and settlements in England. The 
Norwegians founded kingdoms on the northern and western 
coasts of Scotland, which existed for centuries after the de- 
struction of the Danish power in England. They introduced 
their own manners, customs, and laws, and gave Norwegian 
names to the places colonized by them. They appear not 
unfrequently to have married native Celts ; at least it is 
often stated that Norwegian chiefs married daughters of 
the Celtic, or Pictish, and Scotch aristocracy, whose pure 
nationality and power were thus gradually broken 
down. The unfortunate Celts were now in a painful 
position. The Celtic Scots in the Lowlands were pressed 
upon by the Anglo-Saxons and Northmen, whilst the 
Pictish Highlanders were assailed both from the Lowlands 
and from the Norwegian kingdoms in the west and north. 
The most essential result of the Norwegian conquests and 
settlements in the Scotch Highlands was, that the North- 
men, in conjunction with the Norwegian-Danish colonists 
in the Lowlands, and with the Anglo-Saxons who dwelt 
there, overthrew the Celtic dominion, and, like the Danes 
in England, prepared the way for the eventual triumph of 
the Norman spirit and Norman institutions. In the 
Lowlands this took place in the twelfth century, but much 
later in the Highlands and surrounding islands. 

As a close union was thus effected between the long- 
separated Highlands and Lowlands, and a higher and more 
widely-diffused civilization introduced among the people 
in both, it may justly be asserted that the Norwegian con- 
quests in the Highlands, and the Norwegian-Danish settle- 
ments in the Lowlands, were particularly fortunate for 
Scotland. It must always, indeed, be a subject of regret 
that so brave, and in many respects so noble, a people as 
the Caledonians and their descendants, should be extermi- 
nated. Who can observe without a feeling of sadness how 
the last feeble remnants of Scotland's ancient masters, after 
having been expelled from the glorious Lowlands, cannot 
even now find rest among the barren rocks, and in the few 



198 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. II. 

arable valleys of the Highlands, but are obliged, year 
after year, in increasing numbers, to seek another home 
farther west, in the new world beyond the Atlantic? But, 
viewing the matter as it regards enlightenment and civili- 
zation, no charge can be reasonably brought against the 
Norwegians or Northmen, for having co-operated in Scot- 
land to expel a people whose brethren and kinsmen had in 
every country which they occupied shown themselves in- 
capable of adopting the new and milder manners of 
Christianity; and who, once before subdued by the Romans, 
had been compelled to yield to the fresher and more 
powerful Teutonic tribes of the Franks and Anglo-Saxon. 

No small portion of the present population of Scotland, 
both in the Lowlands and on the remotest coasts and isles 
of the Highlands, is undoubtedly descended from the 
Northmen, and particularly from the Norwegians. Both 
the Norwegians and Danes, wherever they established 
themselves, introduced their Scandinavian customs, and 
preserved, in all circumstances, the fundamental traits of 
their national character. It becomes, therefore, probable 
that the Norwegian settlers in Scotland must, in certain 
districts at least, have exercised a vast influence on the 
development of the more modern life of the Scotch people, 
and on their national character. This is indeed actually 
and visibly the case. Yet, although the Norwegian king- 
doms on the coasts of Scotland subsisted long after the 
downfall of the Danish power in England, still the effects 
of the Norwegian conquests in Scotland were far from 
being so great, or so universally felt there, as the results of 
the Danish conquests were in England. The Norwegian 
language was completely supplanted in the Hebrides by old 
Celtic or Gaelic ; and on the Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, 
and the north coast of Scotland, by English. The Nor- 
wegian laws and institutions either entirely disappeared 
in these parts, or were formed anew after quite different 
models. Not even in the purely Norwegian Orkneys and 
Shetland Isles, though they remained united with Norway 



Sect. II.] PEEPONDEEANCE OF THE DANISH NAME. 199 

and Denmark until far in the fifteenth century, could the 
inhabitants maintain the ancient freedom which they had 
inherited from their forefathers. The free tenure of land, 
or right of " Udal," was, for the most part, annihilated by 
the most shameful oppression. Established on many 
small, poor, and widely-separated islands, the Norwegians 
in Scotland could neither obtain such influence for their 
laws and institutions, nor concert so united and powerful a 
resistance against oppression, as their more fortunate 
Danish kinsmen in the open, rich, and densely-peopled 
plains of northern England. 

In spite of the acknowledged fact that the Norwegians 
were the most numerous of all the Scandinavian colo- 
nists in Scotland, we constantly hear Norwegian achieve- 
ments and Norwegian memorials referred to " the Danes." 
Under this common appellation are also generally included, 
as in England, Norwegians and Swedes. The causes of 
this must probably be sought in the long dominion of 
Denmark over Norway, in the brisker and more uninter- 
rupted communication which Scotland maintained with 
Denmark, in comparison with any other part of the North, 
and lastly, in the reciprocal marriages between the ancient 
Scotch and Danish royal families, which in former times 
contributed, in no small degree, to bind the Scotch and 
Danish people together. But the preponderance of the 
Danish name must also be attributed to the pre-eminent 
power of the Danes in ancient times, and in the early 
middle ages; and, of course, more particularly to that 
supreme dominion which they had so gloriously won for 
themselves in the neighbouring country — England. 



200 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. .[Sect, III. 



Section III. 

The Lowlands. — Population. — Language. — Norwegian-Danish 
Names of Places. 

The boundaries between Scotland and England were 
anciently very unsettled. After the time of the Romans, 
the Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings speedily extended their 
dominion over the Cheviot Hills, and frequently to the 
Firths of Clyde and Forth ; whilst considerable tracts of 
the north of England, particularly in the north-western 
districts, were sometimes united with the Scotch Lowlands, 
or with kingdoms which existed there. Until England 
and Scotland were at length united under one crown, the 
north of England was almost uninterruptedly the theatre 
of the bitterest border warfare. The blood of many thou- 
sands of bold warriors has been spilt on that land which 
now teems with the blessings of wealth and peace. 

Part of this old border laud, or the most southern part 
of the present Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to the 
narrow neck of land between the Firths of Clyde and Forth, 
— a tract of about sixty English miles — has not a much 
more mountainous character than the north of England. 
The hills undulate in the same gentle forms ; and it is 
only here and there that a single rugged mountain shows 
its heath-covered or bare and peaked top. Large and 
well-cultivated plains alternate with charming valleys, 
which are frequently narrow, and so fertile that in some 
places creeping plants, bushes, and trees, almost entirely 
conceal the rivulets that wind through them. 

The Highlands extend themselves from the Firth of 
Clyde to the north-west and north ; whilst the Lowlands 
take a direction from the Firth of Forth along the eastern 
border of the Highlands, and by the coasts of the North 
Sea. To the Firth of Tay, and northwards to the Gram- 
pian Hills, the Lowlands are not very broad or extensive, 
whilst the Highland mountains nearly approach the sea- 



Sect. III.] THE SCOTCH LOWLANDS. 201 

shore. It is not till we have crossed the Grampian Hills 
that those large level plains open upon us which compre- 
hend the north-easternmost part of Scotland, particularly 
the present Aberdeenshire. From these less-wooded plains 
we turn towards the north-west into the fertile and well- 
wooded Moray; whence a transition again takes place to 
the Highlands, which begin in the adjoining shire of 
Inverness. At this extreme point the Lowlands have, as 
it were, exhausted all their splendour and abundance. 
Down towards the coast the land is filled with gently- 
sloping hills, and intersected by rivers, whose rapid currents 
remind one of the neighbourhood of the mountains. At 
a distance from the coast the land rises, the tops of the 
mountains become barer and sharper, the valleys have a 
greater depth, and the roaring of the streams over frag- 
ments of rock is heard more distinctly. The mountains, 
as they rise from the Lowlands to the Highlands, afford in 
a still higher degree than the more southern border moun- 
tains, the most enchanting prospects over the coasts and 
sea. It is with difficulty that the spectator tears himself 
from the view of the charms of the Lowlands, to bury him- 
self hi the dark mountains that rise so solemn and 
menacing before him. 

Throughout the Lowlands, the people, both in personal 
appearance and character, very much resemble the inhabit- 
ants of the north of England. This is particularly the 
ease with the inhabitants of the southern borders, between 
the Cheviot Hills and the Firths of Clyde and Forth. 
The same light-coloured hair and the same frame of body, 
which, in the north of England, remind us of the people's 
descent from the Scandinavians, indicate here also con- 
siderable immigrations of that people into the southern 
part of Scotland, and thence farther up along the east 
coast. According to a very common saying here, even the 
language of the Lowlands is so much like that of Scandi- 
navia, that Lowland seamen wrecked on the coasts of Jut- 
land and Norway have been able to converse without diffi- 

x 3 



202 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. III. 

culty in their mother tongue with the common people there. 
This is undoubtedly a great exaggeration ; hut this much 
is certain, that the popular language in the Lowlands con- 
tains a still greater number of Scandinavian words and 
phrases than even the dialect of the north of England. 
We must not unhesitatingly believe that the Saxon lan- 
guage did not extend itself from the north of England to 
the Scotch Lowlands till after it had been mixed with 
Danish; although the remote situation of the latter, so 
high towards the north, was certainly far more adapted to 
preserve the old Danish forms of words than that of north 
England, which was more exposed to the operation of 
newer fashions. But the Danish or Scandinavian elements 
in the popular language of the Lowlands are too consider- 
able to admit of such a supposition, not to speak of the 
Scandinavian appearance of the inhabitants. These 
necessarily indicate Scandinavian immigrations ; and, to 
judge from the present popular language, we might be 
easily tempted to believe that a far greater number of 
Northmen had settled in the Scottish Lowlands than in 
the middle and northern districts of England. We might, 
consequently, also expect to meet with a proportionately 
greater number of Scandinavian names of places in the 
Lowlands than in England. 

But this is very far from being the case. Extremely 
few places with Scandinavian names are to be found in the 
Scotch Lowlands ; and even those few are confined, almost 
without exception, to the old border land between the 
Cheviot Hills and the Firths of Clyde and Forth, and to 
the counties nearest the English border. Dumfriesshire, 
lying directly north of Cumberland and the Solway Firth, 
forms the central point of such places. Northumberland 
and Durham, the two north- easternmost counties of Eng- 
land, contain but a scanty number of them ; and conse- 
quently must have possessed, in early times at least, no 
very numerous Scandinavian population. Cumberland, on 
the contrary, was early remarkable for such a population ; 



Sect. III.J SCANDINAVIAN POPULATION. 203 

whence it will appear natural enough that the first Scan- 
dinavian colonists in the Scotch border lands preferred 
to settle in the neighbourhood of that county. On the 
south-easternmost coast of Scotland, they would not only 
have been separated from their countrymen in the north of 
England by two intervening counties, but also divided by 
a broad sea from their kinsmen in Denmark and Norway. 
Such a situation would have been much more exposed and 
dangerous for them than the opposite coast, where they 
had in their neighbourhood the counties of Cumberland 
and Westmoreland, inhabited by the Northmen, as well as 
the Scandinavian colonies in Ireland and the Isle of 
Man. 

The Scandinavian population in Dumfriesshire evidently 
appears to have emigrated from Cumberland over the 
Liddle and Esk into the plains which spread themselves 
westward of those rivers; at least the names of places 
there have the very same character as in Cumberland. 
Not only are the mountains called " fell " (Fjeld) and 
" rigg " (Ryg), as is also the case in the other border 
lands, but, what is more peculiar to Dumfriesshire, the 
terminations of " thwaite," " beck," and " garth," not to 
mention "by," or "hie," are transplanted hither from 
Cumberland: as, Thorny thwaite, Twathwaites, Robie- 
thwaite, Murraythwaite, Helbeck, Greenbeck, Botchbeck, 
Torbeck, Stonybeck, Waterbeck, Hartsgarth, Tundergarth, 
Applegarth, Locherby, Alby, Middlebie, Dunnaby, Wyse- 
bie, Perceby, Denbie, Newby, Milby, Warmanbie, Sorbie, 
Canoby, and others. 

These Scandinavian names of places are chiefly met with 
between the rivers Esk and Nith. Various authors have 
also endeavoured to show that the fishermen on the Nith 
have to the present day characteristic and original Scan- 
dinavian terms for their tackle and modes of fishing : — for 
instance, " pocknet," Icelandic pokanet ; "leister/ 5 or 
" lister," Icelandic Ijostr, Danish Lyster ; " haaving, " Nor- 
wegian haave, i e., to draw small nets in the water, &c, 



204 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. III. 

&c. Somewhat east of the river, and north of the town of 
Dumfries, lies the parish of " Tinwald," a name un- 
doubtedly identical with Thingvall, or Tiugvold ; which, as 
the appropriate Scandinavian term for places where the 
Thing was held, is found in other districts of the British 
Isles colonized by the Northmen. And it was, indeed, 
natural that the Scandinavian colonists in the south-east 
of Scotland should fix their chief Thing place in the dis- 
trict most peopled by them. 

From Dumfriesshire the Scandinavian names of places 
branch off as it were in an arch towards the west and east. 
Some few appear at intervals towards the west, as in Kircud- 
bright (Begbie, Cogarth), in Wigton (Sorby, Killiness), in 
Ayr (opposite little Cumbray, Crosby, Sterby, Bushby, and 
Magby), and also in Lanark (Bushby, close to the south- 
west of Glasgow). Towards the east, some few are met 
with in Roxburgh, as, for instance, on the borders of Cum- 
berland, " Corby," and " Stonegarthside," and on the 
frontier of Northumberland several in haugh (Hoi, a hill) 
and holm. But on the whole only a few in hy are still to 
be found on the borders between Berwick and Haddington 
(such as Humbie, Blegbie, and Pockbie). Towards Glas- 
gow and Edinburgh the mountains are no longer called 
" fell " and "rigg." The Scandinavian names of places cease 
entirely in these districts ; and only the Scandinavian word 
" fjdr<5r," or Fjord, is heard here, as well as farther towards 
the north in the names of fiords (or firths) namely : Firth 
of Forth, Firth of Clyde, Firth of Tay, Moray Firth, and 
Dornoch Firth. 

In the Lowlands, the number of Scandinavian names of 
places is quite insignificant when compared with the 
original Celtic, or even with the Anglo-Saxon names. 
Whence we may conclude that though a considerable im- 
migration of Northmen into the Lowlands undoubtedly 
took place, it must have occurred under circumstances 
which prevented them from being sufficiently powerful to 
change the original names of places. We must, in par- 



Sect. IV.] SCANDINAVIAN NAMES OF PLACES. 205 

ticular, assume that the immigration took place much later 
than the Danish conquests in England ; and on the whole 
we shall not be far from the truth in asserting, that as the 
Danish conquests in England must have driven many 
Anglo-Saxons into Scotland, so also the subsequent Nor- 
man conquest must have compelled many Danes and Nor- 
wegians, settled in the north of England, to cross the 
Scottish border. 

According to this view, most of the Scandinavian settle- 
ments in the middle and northern parts of the Lowlands 
are to be referred at the earliest to the close of the eleventh 
century ; and at so late a period an entire change of the 
ancient names of places then existing there, could not, of 
course, be effected. 



Section IV. 



Traditions concerning "the Danes." — The Southern and Northern 
Lowlands. — Danish Memorials. — Burghead. 

We cannot venture to conclude, from the few Scandinavian 
names of places found in the Lowlands, that the immigrant 
Scandinavian population was but inconsiderable ; nor can 
we presume to infer either the extent or the period of the 
immigration from the numberless traditions respecting the 
Danes preserved throughout that district. For, although 
the Lowlands were far from being conquered by the Danes 
and Norwegians so early as England was, still the number 
of alleged Danish memorials, even of a remote age, is pro- 
portionately as great in the former as in the latter country. 
Tradition has gradually ascribed almost all the memorials 
existing in the Lowlands which are of any importance to 
"the Danes;" nay, even the learned have, down to the 
present clay, been too much inclined to recognise traces of 
the bloody Danes in the much more ancient Pictish, 
Roman, and Scottish monuments. 

The traditions about the Danes have much the same 



206 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IV. 

character in the Lowlands as in England. They depict in 
vivid and touching traits the misery of the people and of 
the country under the repeated attacks of the wild sons of 
the sea, whose arrival, departure, and whole conduct, were 
as variable as the wind. When large bands of Vikings 
had landed, and the Scots had assembled an army to oppose 
them, it would sometimes happen that in the morning, 
when all was ready for the attack, the foreign ravagers 
were sought for in vain. In the darkness of the night they 
had taken the opportunity secretly to re-embark, and 
rumour soon announced to the army that the Vikings had 
again landed in quite a different part of the country, where 
they were spreading death and desolation. The Lowlander 
tells with horror of the many innocent women and children, 
not to speak of the numbers of brave men, who were 
slaughtered; of the churches, convents, and towns, that 
were destroyed by fire ; and of the numerous herds of cattle 
and flocks of sheep, which, together with valuables of all 
sorts were carried off to the ships of the Vikings. 

Although the Vikings are renowned in England for 
drunkenness and other kinds of dissipation, yet in Scotland 
tradition still more highly magnifies the inclination of the 
Danes for intoxicating liquors, and particularly for ale. It 
is also a general belief among the common people through- 
out Scotland and Ireland that the Danes brewed their 
strong ale from heather ; a tradition which probably arose 
from the circumstance that in ancient times the Northmen 
spiced their ale with herbs ; as. for instance, in Denmark 
with Dutch myrtle, or sweet willow (Dan., Porse), which 
grows in marshy heaths. 

For the rest, there can be no doubt that the Scotch 
stories about the drunkenness of the Danes were a good 
deal multiplied in far later times, at the period, namely, 
when the Princess Anne, a sister of Christian the Fourth, 
was married to the Scotch king James the Sixth, or James 
the First of England. Queen Anne was accompanied to 
Scotland by several Danish noblemen, who introduced at 



Sect. IV.] DANISH DEINKING BOUTS. 207 

court, and among its hangers-on, the same carousing and 
revelling which at that time prevailed in far too high a 
degree at the court of Denmark. Burns, in his poem of 
" The Whistle" celebrates an ebony -whistle still preserved 
in the family of Ferguson of Craigdarrock, which is said 
to have originally belonged to one of Queen Anne's Danish 
courtiers. 

This Dane, who, even among his own countrymen, had 
the reputation of a great drinker, challenged the Scotch to 
drink with him for a wager, and promised the whistle to 
him who could drink him under the table. At the same 
time he produced evidence to show that in all his many 
drinking bouts at various northern courts in Russia and 
Germany, he had never been vanquished. However, after 
drinking three consecutive days and nights with Sir Robert 
Lawrie of Maxwelton, the Dane fell under the table, and 
Sir Robert gained the whistle. Sir Robert's son afterwards 
lost it again at a similar drinking bout with Walter Riddel 
of G-lenriddel, from whose descendants it passed in the 
same way into the family which now possesses it. 

But as a contrast to the many naturally exaggerated 
tales about the excesses committed by the Danes both in 
earlier and later times, it is refreshing to meet with ro- 
mantic traditions about Danish warriors, whose bravery and 
comeliness could win the hearts of Scottish maidens, even 
whilst the curses of the Scots were heaped on " the Danish 
Vikings." A Danish warrior had been carried off by the 
Scots during an expedition into Morayshire, and imprisoned 
in a strong tower, where a speedy death awaited him. But 
the daughter of the lord of the castle, who had fallen in 
love with him, and found a requital of her affection, opened 
his prison door one night, and fled with him. When 
morning came the lord of the castle set off in pursuit of 
the fugitives, and overtook them on the banks of the river 
Findhorn, which runs through Morayshire. The lovers, 
who were both on one horse, attempted to swim the river ; 
but the jaded animal could not make head against the 



208 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IT. 

stream, and the fugitive couple found a watery grave in 
the depths of the Findhorn. Near Dalsie, in Nairnshire, 
is a small sequestered valley on the banks of the Find- 
horn, inclosed by smooth sloping banks, overgrown with 
weeping birches. In the midst of this charming spot is 
seen a grave composed of stones heaped up, at one end of 
which stands a tall monumental slab, ornamented with 
carvings of a cross and other antique figures. This slab, 
the people say, is a monument to the unfortunate lady. 

There is nothing intrinsically improbable in this tradi- 
tion, since history testifies that the daughters of Scottish 
kings married Norwegian-Danish kings ; whilst they, or at 
all events their countrymen, were making war in Scotland, 
In the beginning of the tenth century, the Scotch king, 
Constantine the Third, in conjunction with the more 
northern Anglo-Saxons, beat the Danes, who had passed 
over from Dublin under Reginald and Godfrey OTvar 
(Godfred Ivarson), in a great battle near the Clyde. 
Although Constantine, during nearly the whole of his 
reign, had to fight against Danish and Norwegian Vikings, 
yet he gave his daughter in marriage to Anlaf, or Olaf, 
king of the Danes in Dublin and Northumberland ; nay, 
he even fought with Olaf and his Danish-Norwegian army 
against the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Brunanborg. 
Sigurd, Jarl of the Orkneys, was also married to a 
daughter of the Scotch king, Malcolm the Second (1003- 
1033), although he had made devastating incursions and 
conquests in Malcolm's lands. 

The attacks of the Norwegians and Danes on the 
Scottish Lowlands were so continuous that out of seven 
monarchs who reigned over the Scots from 863 to 961, or 
about a century, three are related to have fallen whilst 
fighting against the Danes. These monarchs are, however, 
said to have purchased decisive victories with their blood. 
If we compare the unsuccessful expeditions of the North- 
men into the Scottish Lowlands with the great conquests 
made by the Danes in England, we shall not wonder that 



Sect. IV.] BATTLES IN THE LOWLANDS. 209 

the inhabitants of the former country relate with a sort of 
pride the many victories of their forefathers over " the 
Danes ; " nor shall we be surprised that the popular tradi- 
tions, which point out the ancient battle fields, scarcely 
admit even the possibility of the Danes having been 
victorious. 

In the southern and middle Lowlands (to the south of 
the Grampian Hills) the Firths of Forth and Tay afforded 
excellent landing places for the ancient Vikings. Many 
battles, therefore, were fought in their neighbourhood. In 
the vicinity of a rampart called "the Danes' dyke," in the 
parish of Crail, close to Fifeness, and between the firths 
just mentioned, the Scotch king Constantine, Kenneth's 
son, is said to have fallen in a battle against the Danes in 
881. Forteviot, or Abernethy, the ancient capital of the 
Picts, which the Vikings often tried to plunder, lay in the 
innermost part of the Firth of Tay. The defence of this 
place, by King Donald the Fourth, in 961, cost him his 
life. Near Eedgorton, in Perthshire, is a farm called 
" Denmark ; " close to which are to be seen remains of in- 
trenchments, besides tumuli, and monumental stones, 
said to originate from a defeat suffered by the Danes at 
this spot. 

The most famous battle in these parts is, however, related 
to have taken place on the northern shore of the mouth of 
the Firth of Tay. In the reign of Malcolm the Second, after 
the Danes had already made themselves masters of Eng- 
land, the attacks of the Vikings began to assume a more 
dangerous character, A number of them landed in the 
Bay of Lunan, in Forfarshire, whence they plundered and 
laid waste the country for many miles around. But to the 
east of Dundee, near Barry, they encountered a Scotch 
army, which defeated them, and compelled them to make 
a retreat, during which they were again repeatedly beaten. 
Even to the present day tradition points out a line of 
Danish monuments extending from Barry to Aberlemno, 
in the neighbourhood of which place the last battles were 



210 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. TV. 

fought, and where human bones of a remarkable size are 
said to have been often found in the tumuli. At Camuston, 
not far from Barry, stands a stone cross called " Camus 
Cross," on which are carved various kneeling figures in an 
attitude of prayer. According to the statements of the 
common people the cross was erected in memory of the 
Danish general Camus, who fell at this spot. At Kirk- 
buddo were formerly seen the remains of a Danish camp 
called "Norway dikes." In the parish of Inverkeilor, 
and near the farm called " Denmark," traces of Danish 
ramparts are also to be found ; and at Aberlemno, Murphy, 
and many other places, are seen sculptured monuments, 
said to have been erected in commemoration of the 
before-mentioned fortunate victories over the Danes. 

It is of course by no means incredible that a great 
battle may have been fought between the Scots and the 
Scandinavian Vikings in this district, and at about the 
time mentioned. But it is perfectly clear that most of the 
Danish monuments before noticed have no connection 
whatever with this frequently-mentioned battle. The 
name Camus is not at all a Scandinavian one ; and it is, 
besides, not only certain that the village of Camuston was, 
in more ancient times, called " Cambestowne," but also 
that there are several similar names of places in the Low- 
lands, which are most correctly derived from the old 
Celtic language. The sculptured monuments in question 
have not, in fact, the least appearance of having been 
erected after any battle. In a splendid work lately pub- 
lished (P. Chalmers, " The Ancient Sculptured Monu- 
ments of the County of Angus," Edinburgh, 1848, folio), 
are to be found correct delineations of a number of stones of 
the same kind, which are spread over Perthshire, Forfar- 
shire, Kincardineshire, and Aberdeenshire ; and still more 
are to be met with along the coasts of the northern Low- 
lands and north-eastern Highlands. One, near St. Vigean, 
in Forfarshire, has an ancient Celtic inscription ; but, 
with this txecepion, no inscriptions are found upon them. 



Sect. IV.] SCOTCH MONUMENTS. 211 

They are usually ornamented on one side "with a cross 
and various fantastic scrolls and ornaments, and on the 
other with biblical representations, such as Adam and 
Eve at the tree of knowledge, Daniel in the lion's den, 
Samson with the jawbone of an ass, &c. Sometimes all sorts 
of strange figures are found on them, such as crescents, 
sceptres, mirrors, combs, and other articles ; as well as 
serpents, lions, elephants, horses, dogs, stags, elks, 
sphinxes, &c. On some stones we find representations of 
the chase, with huntsmen, hornblowers, stags, and hounds. 
The carving is for the most part executed with much skill, 
and the whole style of the work seems referrible to the tenth 
or eleventh century. It is beyond all doubt that these 
stones cannot be ascribed to the Danish or Norwegian 
settlers, though several authors have asserted the contrary. 
They are evidently Christian- Scotch monuments, and have 
been erected with a very different aim from that ascribed 
to them: some, probably, as boundary stones of landed 
possessions and hunting-grounds; others as monumental 
stones to deceased persons. 

One of the Aberlemno stones — a rare exception to the 
rest — which stands close by the church, represents on 
one side a battle, in which both foot and horse are engaged, 
and in which a bird attacks a man wearing a helmet, who 
tries in vain to cover himself with his shield. (See the 
annexed woodcut.) Above is seen a mirror, and one of 
those inexplicable figures which appear so frequently on 
stones of this kind. But in this there is the peculiarity, 
that the figure intersected by the cross-bar with the 
sceptres (?) at each end, is square, whilst in other instances 
it is generally in the form of a crescent. On the back of 
the stone is carved a cross covered with the finest scrolls 
and ornaments, and surrounded by fantastic figures of 
animals interlaced together. The height of the stone is 
about six feet. This monument might possibly have been 
erected after a victory ; but it still remains uncertain, 



212 



THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IV. 

whether after a victory over the Danes. At all events, 
the stone is Scotch, and not Scandinavian. 







Sect. IV. 



ABERLEMNO STONE. 



ais 



The case is much the same with most of the so-called 
" Danish " forts, camps, stone- circles, and hauta stones ; 




214 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IV. 

wliich are in general of Pictish or Celtic origin. Had 
they really been erected by the Danes and Norwegians, 
those nations must evidently have held confirmed dominion 
in these parts for a length of time ; but it is well known 
that, in the early period in which these monuments were 
raised, they can be regarded as masters, in the south and 
central Lowlands, only at very short and far-distant 
intervals. 

North of the Grampian Hills, and particularly in the 
district of Moray (the " Maerhaefi " of the Sagas), the Nor- 
wegians and the Danes, it is true, firmly established 
themselves for a somewhat longer period of time. In the 
beginning of the eleventh century, for instance, they 
defeated the Scots in a great battle near Kinloss, took the 
towns of Elgin and Nairn, whose garrisons they put to 
the sword, and afterwards settled themselves on the sea- 
coast. But the kingdoms which they founded were 
speedily destroyed without leaving any remarkable traces 
behind them; so that, even in this district, we cannot 
place implicit reliance upon the many different stories 
about the Danish monuments. According to a common 
and not improbable tradition, the district of Moray, and 
the present Aberdeenshire, were the theatres on which 
the last battles between the Danish Vikings and the Scots 
were fought. Thus it is said that, in the reign of Mal- 
colm the Second, the Danes, after the battle of Kinloss, 
suffered a great defeat at Mortlach in Banffshire, where 
Malcolm, as a thank-offering to God, caused a convent to 
be built. This, again, was partly the cause of Mortlach "s 
becoming the seat of a bishop. Popular tradition states 
that the Scottish leader vowed during the battle to add 
to the church in Mortlach as much as the length of his 
spear if he succeeded in driving away the Danes. An 
ancient sculptured stone near the church is mentioned as 
pointing out the Danish leader's grave ; and the skulls of 
three Danish chiefs are still shown, built into the north 
wall of the church, as a perpetual memorial. A similar 



Sect. IV.] SVENO'S STONE AT FORRES. 215 

tradition is preserved about the church of Gamrie, also in 
Banffshire. The Earl of Buchan vowed, in the heat of 
the battle, to build a church to St. John, to replace that 
which the Danes had destroyed, if he gained the victory 
over them. Three of the sacrilegious Danish chiefs, by 
whose command the church had been desecrated, were 
found upon the field of battle, and in a description of the 
church lately published we read as follows : — " I have 
seen their skulls grinning horrid and hollow in the wall 
where they had been fixed, inside the church, directly east 
of the pulpit, and where they have remained in their 
prison house 800 years ! " 

It is further stated that, on account of the repeated 
defeats which the Danes and Norwegians had suffered in 
the Scotch Lowlands, King Svend Tvskjseg sent, in the 
year 1012, his son Canute, who afterwards became king of 
England, with a large fleet and army to the northern part 
of the Lowlands. Canute landed on the coast of Buchan 
(Aberdeenshire), near the Castle of Slaines, in the parish 
of Cruden (or Crudane). Here a very fierce battle was 
fought, which can scarcely have been favourable to the 
Danes, since a treaty was afterwards concluded between 
them and the Scotch, according to which the Danes were 
to evacuate the fortress called " Burghead," in Moray, 
then occupied by them, as well as the rest of their pos- 
sessions in the kingdom of Scotland. According to the 
same treaty the field of battle was to be consecrated by a 
bishop as a burial place for the Danes who had fallen on 
it, and a chapel was to be built there in which masses 
should be continually sung for their souls. In this neigh- 
bourhood also there was certainly, at one time, a chapel 
dedicated to the Norwegian saint, Olave ; but the ruins of 
this chapel, as well as the old churchyard, have since 
been destroyed by quicksands. The wind, however, by 
blowing away the sand, still brings, at times, the fragile 
bones of the Danes to the light of day. 

Straight out of the town of Forres, in Nairnshire, stands 



216 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IV. 

a stone nearly twenty feet high, on one side of which is 
seen a large and handsome cross, and under it some indis- 
tinct human figures. On the other side is carved a num- 
ber of horsemen and people on foot, evidently representing 
an execution on a great scale ; several bodies are seen, and 
by the side of them the dissevered heads. The sculpture 
is executed with the greatest care, and displays some very 
tasteful ornaments, which, however, are now partly effaced 
through the action of time on the soft stone. The pillar 
is commonly called " Svenos stone," and tradition relates 
that it was erected to commemorate the treaty of peace 
concluded between Svend Tveskjaeg and King Malcolm, 
and the expulsion of the Danes from the coasts of Moray. 
But the sculptures at present existing on the stone do not 
in the slightest degree represent anything of the kind. 
The stone belongs to the same class of monuments as the 
sculptured Scotch stones before described, which are so 
numerous in the Lowlands, and in the north-eastern High- 
lands, particularly Inverness-shire, Ross-shire, and Cro- 
martyshire. 

One of the few places in the Lowlands, which may with 
reason be assumed to have preserved considerable traces of 
the Danish expeditions, lies in the neighbourhood of the 
towns of Forres and Elgin. It is a promontory which 
projects in a north-western direction almost a mile into the 
sea. Towards its head its steep craggy shores are from 
eighty to a hundred feet high. This extreme point, which 
incloses a small harbour, and which presents a level sur- 
face on its top, where the fishing village of " Burghead " 
is situated, was formerly separated from the main land by 
three immense parallel ramparts, fifteen to twenty feet 
high, with cross ramparts lying between, as well as deep 
and broad ditches, of which there are still considerable 
remains. That the Romans had a fortress here (said to 
have been named " Ultima Ptoroton ") was clearly proved 
several years ago, when a Roman well, which is still used, 
was discovered cut in the rock. But for Vikings, like the 



Sect I V.J BURGHEAD. 217 

Norwegians and Danes, this place afforded a still better 
refuge than for the Romans. Towards the land side, which 
is in some degree barren and uninhabited, they could 
easily defend themselves; and from the sea, the Scots 
could attack them only by entering the harbour, where the 
well-equipped vessels of the Northmen of course prevented 
their landing. In all probability, therefore, the Norwe- 
gians and Danes still further fortified this important point, 
and gave it, perhaps, its present name. Tradition, at 
least, relates that the Danes, after taking Nairn, isolated 
the town or fortress, and called it " Borgen " (the castle) ; 
in which account it is very probable that the names of 
Nairn and the neighbouring Burghead have been con- 
founded. The latter place gradually gained such import- 
ance that it was the last stronghold the Danes possessed 
in the Lowlands. 

It is therefore clear that the Danes, or rather the Nor- 
wegians and Danes, have scarcely a right to claim many of 
the numberless monuments in the Lowlands which both 
the learned and unlearned ascribe to them. In fact, the 
whole eastern coast of Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to 
Moray Firth, is entirely destitute of characteristic and un- 
doubted Scandinavian monuments. It must, however, be 
remembered, that the actual Scandinavian immigrations 
into the Lowlands certainly took place after the Norman 
conquest of England ; or, at all events, at so late a period 
that the Northmen could not remould the Scotch names 
of places into Scandinavian forms. Nor is it strange that] 
the Scandinavian colonists in the Lowlands, who at the 
close of the eleventh century had long been Christians, 
and influenced by the civilization prevailing in England, 
should neither have erected such monuments as stone 
circles, bauta stones, cairns, and barrows, which presup- 
pose a state of heathenism among a people, nor have im- 
pressed their characteristics generally on that district by 
means of peculiar memorials. For at that time they played 
a subordinate part there, and afterwards gradually became 



218 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. V. 

very much mixed with Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and subse- 
quently even with Normans. 

The very circumstance, however, that so large a tract of 
land as the Scottish Lowlands lay out of the path of the 
Scandinavian conquerors during the ninth, tenth, and first 
half of the eleventh centuries, was the cause not only that 
the Danes were able to direct all their power with more 
effect against England, but also that the Norwegians 
could more easily subdue the Orkneys and the Shetland 
Isles, the Hebrides, and various tracts in the northern and 
western Highlands. In these districts much more per- 
ceptible traces of the Norwegian settlers, and of the results 
which they produced, are still preserved, than in the Low- 
lands of the in general transient devastations of the 
Danes and Norwegians. 



Section V. 

The Orkneys and Shetland Isles. — Natural Features. — Population. — 
Oppression. 

We might expect that the most northern isles of Scotland, 
which lie exposed in a stormy sea, should possess the same 
wild and mountainous character as the Faroe Isles and 
Iceland. Such a belief gains strength when, for the first 
time, in passing from Scotland, we obtain a view of the 
southern Orkneys, especially the considerable mountain 
heights of the Isle of Hay. Indeed Hay obtained its 
name (originally " Haey," or the high island) from the 
old Northmen, on account of the mountains which dis- 
tinguish it from the rest of the Orkneys ; for on sailing 
farther northwards, past Hay and the adjacent South 
Eonaldshay (formerly " Rognvaldsey"), we soon discover 
that the Orkneys are in general flair and sandy, although 
with cliff-bound coasts. Their heath-covered hills scarce 
deserve the name of mountains, though here and there 



i 



Sect. V.] ORKNEYS AND SHETLAND ISLES. 219 

called by the inhabitants "fjolds," or Fjelde (mountain 
rocks). The islands are destitute of wood, and exhibit 
frequent ling moors and desert tracts of heath. But 
there is also much, and by no means unfertile, corn- 
land to be found ; and an improved system of agriculture 
has made such advances, that the stranger is sometimes 
surprised, in these distant isles, by the sight of luxuriant 
fields of wheat. 

The waves of the sea, and the powerful currents, have 
intersected the Orkneys with innumerable winding bays, 
or sounds. Besides Mainland, the chief island (first 
called by the Norwegians " Hrossey," and afterwards 
" Meginland," or the continent), the archipelago includes 
a great number of islands of different sizes, which spread 
themselves in a north-east direction from the north coast 
of Scotland. The farthest of the Orkneys is Fairhill, or 
Fair Isle (formerly " Fri^arey"). It lies almost midway 
between the Orkneys and the Shetland Islands, in the 
midst of the rapid current now called Sumburg Roost, but 
which the Norwegians in former times called Dynrost 
(from " rbst," a maelstrom, or whirlpool) ; whence, again, 
the most southern promontory of the Shetland Islands has 
obtained the name of Dunrossness (Dynrasternes). The 
Shetland archipelago (the old Northern " Hjaltland," 
" Hjatland," or " Hetland"), like that of the Orkneys, 
forms a long-extended line, but differs from it in consisting 
principally of one large island, Mainland (" Meginland"), 
surrounded by a great number of proportionately small and 
insignificant ones. 

The most southern point of Dunrossness, on Mainland, 
forms the promontory of Sumburg Head (" Sunnboejar- 
hofSi"), which, however, is of no very great height; in- 
deed the highest mountain in Shetland is only about 
fifteen hundred feet above the sea. Athough the Shetland 
Islands, with regard to mountains, are not to be compared 
with the Faroe Isles, still they exhibit a sort of transition 
from the flatter Orkneys to the mountainous character of 

l 2 



220 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND- [Sect. T. 

the Faroe group. Before the coasts of Shetland stand 
many high and ragged rocks, called " stacks " (old Norsk, 
" stackr"). The coasts themselves are steeper, and the 
mountains larger than in the Orkneys. On the other hand, 
however, the valleys are both longer and broader than the 
mountain valleys of the Faroe Islands. Heath and moor- 
land abound, whilst the corn-fields are small, and the 
corn harvest in general very uncertain and difficult to 
gather. Fishing is the most important source of profit 
for the inhabitants. 

The Orkneys and the Shetland Isles were, as is well 
known, completely colonized by Norwegians in the ninth 
and tenth centuries. They were, however, known and in- 
habited much earlier. It is possible that the Shetland 
Islands were the " ultima Thule " spoken of by Roman 
authors in the first centuries after Christ ; but it is certain 
that the Romans at that time knew the Orkneys by the 
name of " Orcades :" whence it appears that the primitive 
root Ork, in the later Norwegian name of the islands, is 
very ancient, and probably of Celtic origin. Before the 
arrival of the Norwegians, both the Orkneys and the 
Shetland Islands seem to have been inhabited by the same 
Pictish or Celtic race that was settled in the rest of Scot- 
land. Of these older inhabitants memorials still exist in 
different kinds of antiquities of stone and bronze that are 
dug out of the earth, as well as in numerous ruins of 
castles, or Pictish towers, originally built of flag stones 
laid together, without any cement of loam or mortar. 
There are also cairns and stone circles ; the most prominent 
amongst which are the " Stones of Stennis," on each side 
of Brogar Bridge, in Orkney. They are, like Stonehenge 
and Abury circle in England, surrounded with ditches and 
ramparts of earth ; and, after Stonehenge, must be re- 
garded as amongst the largest stone circles in the British 
Islands. The immense masses of erect stones are remark- 
able evidences both of the strength and of the religious enthu- 
siasm of the old Celtic inhabitants; and it is no wonder that 



Sect. V.J JARLS OF ORKNEY. 221 

they made in ancient times such an impression on the Nor- 
wegians, on their arrival at these islands, as to induce them 
to call the promontory on which the largest circle stands 
" Steinsnes " (Stones-naze) and the adjoining firth, " Steins- 
nesfjbrdr " (Stones-naze Firth, now Loch of Stennis). 

No sooner had the Scandinavian Vikings settled them- 
selves, in the ninth century, securely in these islands, than 
they became a central point for the Northmen's expeditions 
not only to the British Islands, but also to Iceland and 
Greenland. Thus when Floke Vilgerdeson, or " Ravne- 
floke," went on a voyage of discovery from Norway to Ice- 
land, he landed on Hjaltland, or Shetland, in a bay which 
obtained from him the name of " Flokavagr." This bay 
must probably be sought on the east coast of Mainland, 
about Cat Firth (KattarfjorSr); for iri its neighbourhood lay 
the Loch of Girlsta (originally " Geirhildarsta^ir "), which 
is said to have obtained its name from the circumstance of 
Floke's daughter, Geirhilde, having been drowned in it 
during her father's short visit to the country. By degrees 
the islands became the rendezvous of a great number of 
discontented Norwegian emigrants, who, to avoid the new 
order of things, had withdrawn themselves from their old 
paternal home, and from this distant place of refuge con- 
tinually harassed the coasts of Norway. 

This induced King Harald Haarfager to undertake an 
expedition against the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, as 
well as against the Hebrides, on the west coast of Scotland ; 
all of which he succeeded in subjugating. He gave the 
Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, as an earldom under the 
crown of Norway, to Ragnvald More-Jarl's family. This 
family produced some great men, who extended their do- 
minion over large tracts in the adjacent kingdom of Scot- 
land. The islands continued, however, to be the resort of 
many malcontent and fugitive Norwegians The renowned 
Ganger-Rolf, the founder of the royal Norman house, is 
said to have dwelt a long time on them before he un- 
dertook his expedition against Normandy. When King 



222 THE NOKWEGJANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. V. 

Erik Blodoxe, Harald Haarfager's son, was driven with 
his queen, the atrocious Gunhilde, from Norway, he fled to 
Orkney, whence he carried devastation far and wide. Sub- 
sequently he obtained a kingdom in Northumberland ; but, 
after his fall, his sons again sought the Orkneys ; where 
they remained till they succeeded in obtaining the kingly 
power in Norway. Snorre Sturleson states, that after the 
fall of this dominion, Gunhilde again fled to Orkney, 
where her daughter, Ragnhilde, had married a member of 
the Earl's family. Ragnhilde trod entirely in her mother's 
footsteps by occasioning dissension, and even murder, in 
the family of the Earl. Somewhat later the Orkneys 
were visited for a time by Kalf Arneson, so well known in 
the more ancient history of Norway, who, at the battle of 
Stiklestad in 1030, was one of the chief leaders of the pea- 
sant army against King Olaf, the saint. He came to the 
Orkneys just in time to take part in a severely-contested 
naval battle, fought in the year 1046, near Rodebjerg 
(RauSabjorg) in Pentland Firth, between the Jarls Thorfin 
and Ragnvald Bruseson. Kalf supported Thorfin with 
six long ships, and thus decided the victory in his favour. 

The older history of the islands exhibits an almost un- 
interrupted series of bloody combats between members of 
the Norwegian Jarl's family. This, however, did not pre- 
vent them from making violent inroads on the coasts of 
Scotland and Ireland. Long after the Vikings' mode of 
life had ceased in the Scandinavian North, it continued to 
be preserved in these islands. This was not only owing 
to their remote situation, opposite hostile coasts, and to 
their characteristic independence, but also to the popula- 
tion having inherited the old Viking spirit, and carefully 
preserved the ancient Norwegian institutions. As long as 
Norwegian jarls ruled, Norwegian laws, customs, and habits, 
as well as the Norwegian language, were absolutely para- 
mount in the islands. The connections which the jarls 
and other powerful leaders maintained with Scotch and 
Irish chiefs, and which often resulted in intermarriages 






Sect. V.] OPPRESSION OF THE ISLANDERS. 223 

between their families, do not seem to have had much 
effect on the Scandinavian national character of these 
island colonists. It was not till the beginning of the 
fourteenth century, when the male line of the old Nor- 
wegian jarls had become extinct, and when the Scotch 
Lord Saint Clair, who had married a daughter of Magnus, 
the last jarl, had obtained possession of the earldom, that 
the ancient liberties, customs, and manners of the inhabi- 
tants, began to be seriously threatened ; nor did it suffice to 
protect the islands against the progress of Scottish influ- 
ence, that they continued to be under the supreme autho- 
rity of Norway. When, at length, the Danish-Norwegian 
king, Christian the First, on the occasion of the marriage 
between his daughter Margaret, and the Scotch king, James 
the Third, in the year 1469, pledged to Scotland the 
Orkneys and the Shetland Isles as part of Margaret's 
dowry, the last tie was severed that bound those countries 
to their Scandinavian friends. The Scottish kings and 
their successors, who also ascended the English throne, 
acknowledged indeed the right of the Danish-Norwegian 
kings to redeem the islands ; but they continually found 
subterfuges to prevent its being exercised. The lawful 
claims of redemption, repeatedly urged by Denmark in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were perfectly fruitless. 
The islands were too important, and far too conveniently 
situated with regard to Scotland, for Great Britain to give 
them up, without being compelled by the last necessity. 
The undoubted right of the Danish-Norwegian kings was 
forced to give way to the superior power and political 
influence of the British sovereigns. 

The conduct observed towards the Norwegian popula- 
tion of these islands after their union with Scotland was 
quite as unjust as their separation from Norway and Den- 
mark, and assuredly far more revolting to all proper feeling. 
A large part of the inhabitants had till then been in the 
free possession of their lands as freeholders, or " udallers " 
(Odelsmaend), and had likewise possessed their old Norwe- 



224 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. V, 

gian laws and privileges, which should of course have been 
respected when the islands were pledged to Scotland. But 
the Scotch nobles, who, partly as vassals, partly as royal 
lessees, obtained the government of the islands, took care 
to destroy all traces of the ancient liberties and Scandina- 
vian characteristics of the people. The resistance of the 
islanders was fruitless. In the year 1530 they took up 
arms under the command of their governor, Sir James 
Sinclair, in order to oppose the appointment of a crown 
vassal over the islands. The Earl of Caithness himself, 
who had been dispatched against them, fell, with five 
hundred of his men, in a sanguinary action near the 
" Stones of Stennis." But though the islanders thus 
asserted their rights for a short period, the Scotch re- 
gents soon afterwards succeeded in establishing crown- 
vassals in the islands. 

Among these vassals none has left behind him a more 
despised or hated name than Earl Patrick Stuart, who 
from 1595 to 1608, or about thirteen years, oppressed the 
islands in the most shameful manner. He violently de- 
prived the holders of allodial farms of their right of posses- 
sion, and converted almost all the freeholders into lease- 
holders. He arbitrarily changed the weights and mea- 
sures, so that the taxes and imposts became intolerable- 
Law and justice were not to be procured, for the Earl's 
creatures everywhere occupied the judgment-seats. To 
appeal to Scotland was no easy matter, as Lord Patrick's 
soldiers guarded all the ferries. In the Orkneys the Earl 
compelled the people to build him a strong fortress at 
Kirkwall, and in Shetland another at Scalloway; from 
which places armed men ranged over the country, to 
punish and overawe the malcontents. The ruins of these 
castles form a still-existing memorial of " the wicked Earl 
Patrick," who, for his tyranny, was at length recalled to 
Scotland, accused of high treason, and beheaded. 

The Scottish kings, it is true, now promised the islanders 
that they should have relief in their need, and that no vassal 



Sect. V.] LIFE IN ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. 225 

of the crown should be placed over them. But this promise 
was not kept ; and so far from the islanders again recover- 
ing their lost freedom, the feudal system of England and 
Scotland continued to take firmer root in the islands. 
Oppression stalked on with regular and steady step until 
it arrived at such a pitch that not only did the Norwegian 
laws and liberties disappear, but the islands themselves, 
with some few exceptions, became the private property 
of a few individuals. The successors of the mighty 
Vikings, descended from kings and jarls of Norway and 
the North, who in winter dwelt as chiefs, or at least as 
freemen, in roomy mansions, whilst in the summer they 
gained glory and booty in their long ships, are now in 
general obliged to content themselves with inhabiting 
as leaseholders, or rather as annual tenants, a poor cottage 
on a small piece of land, where, by hard labour, they are 
able to gain, at best, a very frugal subsistence. Their 
dwellings, particularly in Shetland, are of the most 
wretched description. The walls are formed of small 
unhewn stones, with turf and sea-weed thrust into the 
interstices, and, instead of a chimney, the smoke escapes by 
a hole in the roof. Within the house there are generally 
sleeping-places in the thick stone wall ; but men and cattle 
live together in friendly harmony in the same apartment. 
The fire burns freely on the floor, and envelopes all in a 
dense smoke. If the people seek their living on the sea 
by fishing, it is usually in boats belonging to the proprietor 
of the estate, who consequently receives a large share of 
their profits. The condition of the common people in the 
Orkneys, and in the Shetland Isles, is certainly not at all 
enviable, even in comparison with that of their Scandina- 
vian kinsmen on the poor and more remote Faroe Islands 
and Iceland ; although commerce is still limited and op- 
pressed there by a monopoly which was soon abolished in 
the Orkneys and Shetland Isles after their separation from 
the united Norwegian-Danish kingdoms. But in spite of 
all their calamities, the inhabitants of the Faroe Isles and 

l 3 



226 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND, [Sect. VI. 

Iceland have for the most part preserved to our times that 
freedom of landed property which they inherited from their 
forefathers. 



Section VI. 

Shetland. — The People. — Songs. — Sword Dance. — Language. — Names 
of Places. — Tingwall. — Burg of Mousa. — Tumuli. — Bauta Stones.* 

If the present originally Norwegian population in the 
Orkneys and Shetland Islands possessed, on the whole, any 
strongly-marked Scandinavian characteristics, they would 
naturally occur most in the islands farthest towards the 
north. But the oppressions and political changes that 
have occurred there have done their work so thoroughly, 
that even the Shetlanders no longer bear in their cha- 
racter and natural disposition any strongly-marked feature 
of their Norwegian origin. The only ones remaining 
are, perhaps, their love of the sea, and their skill in con- 
tending with its dangers. Even their bodily frame has, 
through many years of want and debasement, lost much of 
its strength and nobleness. In the parish of Coningsburgh, 
in Mainland, precisely where the largest and strongest- 
built people are to be found, the Scandinavian population 
are said to have kept themselves most free from mixture. 
The inclination for disputes and fighting amongst the 
people of Coningsburgh is well known in Shetland. 
This trait is, at all events, more Scandinavian than mo- 
roseness and want of hospitality to strangers, which are 
almost unknown in the North, but which in the last cen- 
tury were alleged to be vices of these same men of 
Coningsburgh. It was said that they would not willingly 
give a traveller a night's lodging, and that directly at day- 
break they awoke him, saying: — " Myrkin i livra; lurein 
i liunga ; timin i guestin i geungna ;" that is, " It is dark 
* Partly from S. Hibbert, P. A. Munch, and Chr. Ployen. 



Sect. VI.J SCANDINAVIAN CUSTOMS IN SHETLAND. 227 

in the smoke-hole, but it is light on the heath, and for the 
guest it is now time to depart." That this sentence, 
which was written down in the year 1774, consists of old 
Norwegian words, though in a corrupted form, is quite 
evident. 

The Shetlanders still retained, in the last century, many 
of the customs of their Scandinavian forefathers. Thus 
surnames were given both to sons and daughters, according 
to the genuine Scandinavian custom, from the father's 
Christian name. The eldest son, for instance, of Magnus 
Anderson was called Anders Magnuson, and all the other 
sons had likewise the surname of Magnuson ; whilst the 
daughters, in like manner, were all called Magnus-daughter, 
of course with different Christian names. Even the Nor- 
wegian language is said to have been spoken at that time 
by some few old persons in the most remote islands. The 
traditions and songs handed down by their forefathers still 
lived among the people, whose poets and poetical feeling 
have been celebrated from the earliest times. It was cus- 
tomary to revive the memory of former days by festal 
assemblies, in which the youth of both sexes danced to 
songs ("Visecks") and ballads, as they did in ancient 
times throughout the North, and as is still the custom in 
the Faroe Isles. At Yule time (Christmas), which was the 
chief festival, and the beginning of which was always an- 
nounced at daybreak by playing an ancient Norwegian 
melody, called " the day-dawn " (Dan., Daggry), all kinds 
of merriment took place. A favourite amusement was the 
so-called sword-dance, the origin of which may be traced 
with sufficient certainty to the times of the heathens. 
The Vikings were frequently very dexterous in playing 
with naked swords, throwing several at once into the air 
without allowing them to fall to the ground. This practice 
was easily converted into a dance, performed by several 
men with drawn swords ; and consisting of many windings 
and figures calculated to develope a dexterous agility, 
which, in those warlike times, must naturally have excited 



.228 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VI. 

a lively interest among the spectators. Later in the middle 
ages the sword-dance in the Shetland Isles lost by degrees 
the wildness of its character, the number of dancers 
being limited to seven, representing the Seven Champions 
of Christendom, viz., St. James of. Spain, St. Denis 
of France, St. Anthony of Italy, St. David of Wales, St. 
Patrick of Ireland, St. Andrew of Scotland, all under the 
command of St. George of England, who both opened and 
closed the dance by reciting some English verses appro- 
priate to the occasion. 

All this, however, is now much changed. In the far- 
thest island towards the west, that of Papa stour (" Papey 
stoerri," the great Pap Island, in contradistinction to the 
neighbouring Papa little, " Papey litla"), a last shadow of 
the old warlike sword-dance is occasionally to be seen. 
Instead, however, of being clothed in armour or shirts of 
mail, the dancing knights have shirts of sackcloth ; and, 
in place of huge swords, they brandish straightened iron 
hoops, stripped from some herring-cask. The old Nor- 
wegian songs are no longer heard. Of the ancient Nor- 
wegian popular language the only remains are partly a few 
words, which, however, appear conspicuously in the Eng- 
lish dialect now used ; and partly a peculiarly sharp pro- 
nunciation, with a considerable rising and sinking of the 
voice, not unlike the vulgar pronunciation in the Faroe 
Isles. The old Norwegian words are particularly employed 
for certain objects and implements which have been in use 
from time immemorial. 

Thus, for instance, the hole through which the smoke 
escapes (Dan., Lyre) in the roof of houses covered with 
flat turf (flaas) is sometimes still called by the name of 
"livra" (in the Faoroic language " ljowari "). The 
high seat for the mistress of the house is called, in 
remote districts, "hoy-saede" [Dan., Hoisaede); her 
" bysmer," which serves her for weighing, exactly agrees, 
both in name and nature, with the " Bismer " common in 
the North. The hand-mill, which is fast disappearing, is 



Sect. VI.] NOKWEGIAN LANGUAGE IN SHETLAND 229 

called as in the Danish part of north England, " qvern." 
The turf-spade, called in the Faroe Isles " torvskjseri " 
{Dan., Torveskjserer), is here named "tuysker." The 
land-tax also, according to Scandinavian fashion, is paid 
in "merk" and "ure" (Mark and Ore). The outlying 
fields are called " hogan," " hagan " (Old Norsk, " hagi," 
an inclosed field). The deep-sea fishery (Dan., Hav) 
is called "the haaf;" the fishing itself, " haaf-fishing " 
(Dan., Havfiskerie) ; and the necessary lines, " tows" (Dan., 
Touge). To the present day the Shetlanders use, in these 
fisheries, boats imported from Norway, which are peculiarly 
suited, by their construction, for the high seas and rapid 
currents on the coasts of Shetland. The dress worn by 
the fishermen when out at sea bears a striking resemblance 
to that of the Faroe men. The head is covered with a 
cap knit in the form of a night-cap, and ornamented with 
the most motley colours. They wear a coat of tanned 
sheep-skin, reaching down to the knees, where it generally 
meets a pair of huge and capacious skin boots, very care- 
fully sewed. On land the Shetlanders use only a simple 
kind of shoe called " rivlins," consisting of a square piece 
of untanned cow-hide, covering little more than the sole 
of the foot, and fastened with a fishing-line or a strip of 
skin. The men of Faroe have similar shoes, called 
" skegvar," which, however, are far better made. 

But what particularly reminds the Scandinavian traveller 
in Shetland of finding himself in a country formerly alto- 
gether Norwegian, is the names of places, all of which 
bear the impress of their Norwegian origin. This remark 
applies to the names of the islands themselves, as well as 
to the names of towns, farms, promontories, and bays ex- 
isting in them. They, of course, resemble, in a great de- 
gree, the old Scandinavian names of places farther south, 
in Scotland and England. Thus, for instance, a fiord is 
generally called "firth" (fjorSr); a creek " wick" (Dan., 
Vig); a holm, or small island, "holm;" a promontory, or 
naze, " ness;" a valley, " daill," or "dale." But it is 



230 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VI. 

peculiar to these districts, that the forms of names of 
places which occur most frequently in the old Danish part 
of the north of England, namely, those ending in by, 
thwaite, and thorpe, are extremely rare in Shetland, and in 
the rest of the old Norwegian possessions in Scotland. 
Of those in by, only a few instances are to be found; those 
in thwaite are still more rare ; and those in thorpe are not 
to be met with at all. On the other hand, these districts 
possess several Scandinavian names of places which are 
also most frequently found in the old Norwegian colonies 
in the north and west of Scotland, but which are perfectly 
unknown in the old Danish part of the north of England. 
For instance, a small bay (Dan., Vaag) is called "voe" 
(vagr); whence, on Mainland, we find " West- voe," "Aiths 
voe " (the bay by the tongue of land), " Lax-voe" (Lax, 
or Salmon-bay), " Selia-voe" (sildavagr, the " Silde Vaag," 
or herring-bay), " Hamna-voe " (hafnarvagr, the Havne 
Vaag, or harbour bay), together with others. A still 
smaller bay, navigable only by boats, is called " gjo," or 
" goe" (Old Norsk, gja, an opening or cleft). For the rest, 
many farms have names with such endings as seter (Old 
Norsk, setr), ster and sta (Old Norsk, sta^Sr, a place) ; and 
also busta, buster, and bister (contracted from " bolsta^r," 
a dwelling-place) ; whence, for instance, Kirkbuster (for- 
merly Kirkjubolsta^r); all of which names agree just as 
well with those found in the Faroe Isles, Iceland, and the 
mother-country, Norway, as the names of places in the 
north of England ending in by, thwaite, and thorpe, agree 
with those in the corresponding mother-country, Denmark. 
Although the difference between the present traces of Danish 
colonization in England, and of Norwegian in Scotland, is 
not considerable, still it may be recognised in this manner , 
In consequence of the remote situation of the Shetland 
Isles, the names of places, in spite of all revolutions, 
remain so much the same, that the old political and reli- 
gious institutions of the islands are visible, as it were, 
through them. In the south part of Mainland lies the 



Sect. VI.] "THING" PLACES IN SHETLAND. 231 

farm of Howff, where in ancient times there was certainly 
a " Hof," or house of God; and far northwards, near 
Hillswick (formerly Hildiswik), is the promontory of Tor- 
ness (porsness), which probably once had a Hof for the 
god Thor. Nor far from thence is the Lake Helgawater 
(Helgavatn), or the holy water. Heathenism, however, 
lasted but a short time in the islands. The Irish Chris- 
tian priests {Old N., " Paper ") — the memory of whom still 
lives in the names of the islands Papa (Papey), as Papa 
stour (great) and Papa little — seem to have worked inde- 
fatigably; insomuch that the Norwegian king Olaf Trygg- 
vesdn was able, at the close of the tenth century, to intro- 
duce Christianity throughout the islands. In place of the 
old god-houses there speedily arose a number of chapels 
or small churches, consecrated to different saints : viz., to 
the Norwegian saints, St. Sunifva (the daughter of an 
Irish king who suffered shipwreck in Norway), St. Olaf, as 
well as, at a somewhat later time, to St. Magnus, the patron 
saint of the Orkneys, after whom a great bay on the 
north-west coast of Mainland is to the present day called 
St. Magnus' Bay. St. Magnus seems also to have been 
the patron, or rather the chief saint, of Shetland ; at least, 
the principal church in Shetland is consecrated to him. 
This church did not stand in Lerwick, the present chief 
town in Shetland, which has risen far later in the south- 
eastern part of Mainland, on the site of an old sea-side 
town near Bressasound (formerly " BrerSeyjarsund"). It 
lay about four miles to the north-west of Lerwick, in the 
parish of Tingwall; where, as the name (pingavollr) de- 
notes, the chief Thing of the islands was held for centu- 
ries, and where, in heathen times, the chief place of sacri- 
fice undoubtedly existed. The parish of Tingwall comprises 
one of the prettiest and best-cultivated valleys in Shetland. 
The old Thing place is still to be seen near the church, in 
a small holm, or island, in a lake, connected with the land 
by a row of large stepping stones. Secure against a 
sudden attack, here sat, when the island was free, the 



232 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VI. 

" foude " (Dan., Foged), or magistrate, with his law-officers, 
whilst the multitude of the common people stood round 
about on the shores of the lake, and listened to what 
passed. Popular tradition says that the church was at 
that time a free place, or sanctuary, so that a person con- 
demned to death was entitled to a pardon, if he could 
succeed in running from the holm over the stones, and 
reaching the church without being killed by the people. 
If this was really the case the commonalty must conse- 
quently have had power to pardon a convicted person by 
suffering him to escape into the church. 

During the holding of the chief Thing, which in the 
olden times was generally accompanied with great sacrifi- 
cial offerings, as well as with fairs and all sorts of merry- 
making, a multitude of persons always assembled, and a 
great many tents and booths were erected, both at the 
Thing place itself and in the immediate vicinity. Hence 
it undoubtedly arose that about three miles to the west 
of Tingwall, near a bay of the sea, there was a collection 
of Skaaler, or wooden booths ; whence the present Scalloway 
(Skalavagr) which, next to Lerwick, is the most important 
trading place in the islands. 

In Mainland alone there were at least seven lesser 
Things, under the jurisdiction of the chief Thing in Ting- 
wall. The names of five of these are still preserved in 
Sandsthing (Sandsjring), Aithsthing (Ei^sfing), Delting 
(DalaJ>ing), Lunziesting (Lundei^>isJ)ing), and Nesting 
(Nesting); but the two other names, which are known 
from records, RauSarJnng — probably the most northern 
parish, Northmavine — and pveita])ing (the most southern 
parish?), have disappeared. Special Things were, of course, 
also held on the larger islands, such as Yell ("Jali") 
and Unst (" Aumstr," "Ormst"); but it is certainly 
very incorrect to infer, as many persons do, from some 
stone circles near Baliasta, close by Unst, that the chief 
Thing of the islands was held there in the most ancient 
times of heathenism. 



Sect.VI.J STONE CIKCLES AND ROUND TOWERS. 233 

These stone circles belong simply to low graves en- 
circled by stones, like those so frequently found in Nor- 
way, and whose date is of the latest period of heathenism, 
or what is called the iron age. Skeletons have been found 
in several similar graves in Shetland ; and at different 
times urns containing burnt bones and ashes have also 
been discovered, together with other distinct traces of 
their having been burial-places. For the rest, barrows or 
tumuli, bauta stones, runic inscriptions, and similar monu- 
ments and antiquities of the heathen times, are by no 
means frequently to be met with ; the reason of which 
must naturally be sought in the short duration of heathen- 
ism in these islands. The remains of only a single insig- 
nificant runic stone, and that of the Christian sera, have 
been discovered near Crosskirk, in the north of Mainland. 
The numerous round towers, or castles, of loose flag- 
stones laid together, which are often built on islands in 
lakes, and are called by many " Danish burghs," are, as 
before stated, of Pietish or Celtic origin. They have no 
resemblance whatever to the old fortresses in the Scandi- 
navian North ; whilst, on the other hand, buildings entirely 
corresponding with them are to be found in the Celtic 
Highlands of Scotland, and on the coasts of Ireland. The 
most that can be said is that the Norwegians availed 
themselves of these buildings after their conquests and 
settlements in these districts. Thus the remains of a 
tower are to be seen on a holm in Burra Firth (Borgar- 
fjorSr, or Borgfjord, i. e. Castle fiord), in the west of Main- 
land, which may have been inhabited in the beginning of 
the twelfth century by the chief Thorbjorn, whom the 
Earls Magnus and Hakon attacked and killed in " Bor- 
garfjbrSr." The ground-plan of the ruin (after Hibbert) 
shows how the chambers were disposed in the thick stone- 
wall. 



234 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VI. 




Another ancient Celtic tower, which tradition decidedly 
states to have been occupied by Norwegians, and which, on 
that account, has a particular interest for a Scandinavian, 
lies on the little island of Mousa (the ancient "Mosey"), 
close to the sound that separates the island from the south- 
eastern coast of Mainland. The tower is, fortunately, the 
best preserved one of the kind in the British Islands. It 
rises to the height of between forty and fifty feet, like an 
immense and perfectly round stone pillar, but bulging out 
towards the middle. Its appearance from without is quite 
plain, and no other opening can be perceived in the wall 
than the entrance-door, which even originally was so low 
that it was necessary to creep through it. To attack the 
tower, even when the door stood open, was not easy, and 
the bulging of the wall in the middle rendered the scaling 
of it almost impossible. The entire tower is about fifty 
feet in diameter, and consists of two concentric stone walls, 
the innermost of which encloses an open space of about 
twenty feet wide. The two concentric walls are each five 
feet thick, and stand at a distance of five feet from each 
other. The small space between them formed the habitable 
part of the tower. From the open yard we ascend a stone 
staircase, and, before we reach the top, seven divisions or 
stories are passed, separated by large flag-stones, which 
form a ceiling for one story and a floor for the next. In 
the different compartments, which quite encircle the tower, 



Sect. VI.] 



TOWER IN MOUSA. 



235 



are small square openings, or air holes, one above the 
other, and looking out into the inner yard. The annexed 
drawings and sections (taken from Hibbert's description of 
Shetland), which represent the tower in its evidently origi- 
nal state, will serve to explain still more clearly the 
nature of this simple, yet remarkable, building. 





236 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VI. 




This tower appears to have stood deserted as early as 
the tenth century. Whilst Harald Haarfager reigned in 
Norway, a distinguished Norwegian Viking and merchant, 
Bjorn Brynjulfson, carried off his beloved Thora Roalds- 
datter (Roalds-daughter) from the fiords. He brought her 
first to his father's house; but, as his father would not 
permit him to celebrate his marriage there, he fled with 
her in the spring, on board his ship, and sailed westwards. 
After suffering much from storms and heavy seas, the 
couple landed at last on Mosey, and took up their temporary 
abode in the castle there, whither they brought the whole 
of the ship's cargo. In " Moseyjarborg," Bjorn celebrated 
his marriage with Thora, and dwelt there through the 
winter. But next spring he learned that King Harald, at 
the entreaty of Thora's friends, had exiled him from Nor- 
way ; and that commands had even been sent by Harald 
to the jarls and chiefs in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, 
and in Ireland, to put him to death. He therefore again 
put to sea, and landed safely with his Thora in Iceland. 

A few centuries later, the chief Erlend Junge fled from 
the Orkneys with Margaret, mother of the Jarl Harald 
Maddadson, who was as much celebrated for her beauty as 
for her wantonness, and shut himself up with her in 
" Moseyjarborg." The Jarl Harald, who had opposed their 
marriage, set out in pursuit of them, and blockaded the 



Sect. VII.] JARL HARALD MADDADSON's MOTHER. 237 

castle for a long time, in order, if possible, to cut off their 
supply of provisions, and thus compel them to surrender; for, 
by force, says the Saga, the castle could scarcely be taken. 
But Harald at last became weary of the siege, and concluded 
an agreement with Erlend that he should have Margaret 
to wife on condition of swearing fealty to him as jarl. 

This old and venerable tower has, therefore, not only 
been the scene of sanguinary battles and deeds of cruelty, 
but its strong walls have also afforded a secure asylum to 
sincere and all-sacrificing love. 



Section VII. 



The Orkneys. — " pingavollr." — Monuments of the Olden Time. — 
Kirkwall. — St. Magnus Church. 

The Orkneys, on account of their greater fertility, and of 
their lying nearer to Scotland, were in ancient times, as 
indeed they are at present, of much more importnnce than 
the distant Shetland Isles. As the chief seat of the Nor- 
wegian jarls, they formed the central point of the Norwe- 
gian power in the north of Scotland. According to the 
Sagas, most of the many Danes and Norwegians who settled 
on the islands to the north of Scotland, resorted to the 
Orkneys ; by which means, the jarls who governed them 
were enabled easily to assemble large fleets, and to man 
them with picked Scandinavian warriors. It was chiefly, 
therefore, Norwegians from the Orkneys, who, under the 
command of the jarls of Orkney, made such extensive 
conquests in the territories of the Scottish kings. 

Jarl Sigurd the Stout (Dan., Digre), who, as before 
mentioned, was married to a daughter of the Scotch king, 
Malcolm the Second, and Jarl Thorfin, his son by King 
Malcolm's daughter, pre-eminently distinguished themselves 
by bold Viking expeditions into the neighbouring countries, 
and particularly by their conquests on the Scotch coast. 
They extended these as far south as Moray ; nay it is even 



238 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VII. 

said that at times they went as low as to the Firth of Forth. 
Thorfin was the last of the jarls of Orkney in whom the 
old Scandinavian Vikings' spirit lived and stirred. His 
power was greater than that of any of his predecessors or 
successors ; for he ruled, say the Sagas, over no fewer than 
eleven earldoms (Jarledbmmer) in Scotland, over all the 
Hebrides, and a large kingdom in Ireland. But after the 
many warlike expeditions, raids, and incendiarisms, in which 
he had played a part, he at length became penitent, and 
undertook a journey through Denmark and Saxony to 
Rome, where the pope gave him an indulgence for his sins. 
After his return, he governed his kingdom peacefully till 
his death, which took place about the year 1064. Notwith- 
standing that a new and Christian sera had irresistibly 
established itself under this fierce Viking, the Orkneys con- 
tinued for more than a century after his death to foster 
men who were Christians only in name, but in reality, both 
in their way of thinking and conduct, were heathen Vikings. 
Svend Asleifson, who, in the middle of the twelfth century, 
lived on the little island of Gairsay (Gareksey), close to 
the north-east side of Mainland, occupies a prominent 
place among these Vikings. He was surrounded by a band 
of eighty men, with whom in the winter he remained at 
home in his mansion, living well on the booty that had 
been won. In the spring, after seed-time, he set out with 
them on expeditions to the Scotch, English, and Irish 
coasts. In the autumn he returned home for a short time, 
in order to gather the corn into his barns ; and then again 
set out and harried the before-mentioned countries until 
the beginning of winter. On one of these autumnal 
Viking expeditions he even took Dublin; but whilst he 
fancied himself secure, the inhabitants suddenly fell upon 
and killed him, together with a great number of his men, 
who defended themselves with the utmost bravery. 

In consequence of these important Viking expeditions, 
as well as of the greater life and bustle which prevailed in 
the Orkneys, not only are more historical accounts pre- 



Sect. VII.] HISTORICAL SCENES IN THE ORKNEYS. 239 

served of them than of the Shetland Isles, but they like- 
wise exhibit more conspicuously how the warlike spirit of 
the Scandinavian population, when it began to be curbed 
by Christianity and the abandonment of piratical expe- 
ditions, preyed upon itself, and exhausted its strength in 
sanguinary internal conflicts. Memorials of this are found 
on almost all the islands. In going from Shetland, the 
first island made after passing Fairhill, and when approach- 
ing the proper group of the Orkneys, namely, North 
Ronaldshay (" Rinansey "), was the scene of a terrible 
revenge taken by Jarl Einar on King Harald Haarfagers 
son, Halfdan Haaleg (Long-legs), who had murdered 
Einar's father, Ragnvald Morejarl, in Norway. Jarl Einar 
is said to have avenged his father in the same manner as, 
according to the Saga, the sons of Regner Lodbrog punished 
their father's murderer, King Ella of Northumberland; 
namely, by cutting a blood eagle on Halfdan 's back. At 
Lopnes (" Laupandaness "), in the neighbouring island of 
Sanday ("Sandey"), Jarl Einar Sigurdson was killed in the 
following century (the eleventh) by Thorkel Fostre, so 
called because he had brought up, or fostered, Einar's 
brother, subsequently the famed Thorfin Jarl. Not long 
afterwards, Thorfin's nephew, Jarl Ragnvald Bruseson, was 
killed by the same Thorkel on Little Papa Island 
(" Papey "), to the north-west of Sanday. Thorkel and 
Thorfin had previously surrounded and set fire to the 
house, wherein the jarl was with his men. The jarl's 
corpse was then conveyed to and buried on the neighbour- 
ing isle of Papa Westray (" Papey hin meiri," the Great 
Pap Island), adjacent to Westray (" Vestrey ") and the most 
northern of all the Orkneys. Thorkel Fletter, surnamed 
the restless, was burnt in his house in Eday (" ErSey "), 
in the twelfth century; and in the year 1137 the Jarl Paal 
was surprised by Svend Asleifsbn on Rowsay (" Rolfsey "), 
and carried away prisoner to Athol, in Scotland. About 
twenty years previously (1110) the celebrated jarl, Magnus 
Erlendson, was attacked and murdered by his kinsman, 



240 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. Til. 

Jarl Hakon Paalson, on the adjacent island of Egilshay, 
(" Egilsey "). In honour of Magnus, who was afterwards 
canonized, and became the patron saint of the Orkneys, a 
church was built on Egilshay, which still exists, though in 
a somewhat altered form. 

Between the last-named islands and Mainland are the 
small isles Enhallow (" Eyin helga," the holy isle) and 
Wire (" Vigr "). On the latter Kolbein Ruga had, in the 
twelfth century, a castle, the site of whose ramparts can 
still be clearly distinguished. But Mainland itself is 
naturally the island with which the most numerous and 
remarkable memorials of the Norwegian dominion are 
associated. For centuries numberless Vikings' fleets con- 
stantly rode at anchor in its bays and in the adjacent 
straits ; and almost every spot on the island is famous in 
the Orkneyinga Saga as having been the residence of some 
distinguished man, or the scene of some important histo- 
rical event. The numerous Norwegian names of places 
ending in wall (vagr), wick, firth, ness, buster, toft, holm, 
and so forth, which are everywhere met with in the island, 
do not, however, merit particular consideration, since they 
resemble those in the rest of the Orkneys and Shetland 
Isles ; yet they serve to establish that the Norwegians 
must have superseded here, no less than in the other 
islands, the older Celtic population. We soon discover 
that the vicinity of the Orkneys to Scotland, and their 
brisk intercourse with that kingdom, as well as with Eng- 
land, have contributed, both in Mainland and in the sur- 
rounding islands, to do away with many of those names of 
places which are still found in Shetland as witnesses of the 
old Norwegian judicial institutions. Thus we should look 
in vain in Mainland for that " pingavollr," or Tingvalla, 
which anciently was the chief Thing place of the island, as 
is expressly mentioned in old records. We should be just 
as unsuccessful in finding traces of the lesser Things, 
which, in Shetland, as we have seen, can almost all be 
still pointed out in the names of places ; and this not- 



Sect. VII.] NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE IN ORKNEY. 241 

withstanding we know for a certainty that the Orkneys had 
a court of justice in common with Shetland, till the year 
1196 at least; from which time Shetland was governed by 
its own laws. The same powerful Scottish influence has 
likewise effaced in the Orkneys most of the few Norwegian 
words, customs, and manners which still sustain a feeble 
existence in the remote islands of Shetland. The Norwe- 
gian language, some vestiges of which might be traced, in 
the last century, in the parish of Haray (Herat)), has left 
behind it only a peculiar singing pronunciation, and some 
few characteristics in the English language now in use 
there ; thus, for instance, in addressing a person, the nomi- 
native and accusative thou and thee are used, instead of 
you. The present language of the Orkneys is almost a purer 
English than that of the Scotch Lowlands ; which is a 
natural consequence of English having begun at a later 
period to be the ruling language in the islands. The 
present population of Mainland, together with the other 
inhabitants of the Orkneys, has undeniably preserved a cer- 
tain Scandinavian appearance ; and English civilization 
has, among other things, both sharpened the people's innate 
inclination for a maritime life, and increased their coolness 
towards, not to say ill-will and contempt for, the Gaelic 
Highlanders. On the whole, however, Scandinavian cha- 
racteristics are by no means conspicuous among the people. 
English civilization, and Scotch-English institutions, have 
been introduced to such a degree into Mainland, and 
thence into the other islands, that a traveller would not 
know he was in the chief country of the former mighty 
Norwegian jarls, unless he were able to decipher the fre- 
quently transformed names of places ; or, above all, unless 
he had such a general knowledge of the island's history 
and antiquities that he could apprehend, and in some 
degree interpret, the hints given by silent monuments of 
the brilliant but long-departed age of heroes. 

The memory of the warlike life of heathenism is con- 
spicuously preserved in Mainland by the many large 

M 



242 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VII. 

barrows, or tumuli, which meet the eye on all sides. It 
is, indeed, certain that several of these — viz., what are 
called the " Picts' houses," which form in their interior 
stone chambers, covered by small tlag-s tones laid over one 
another — must be ascribed to the older inhabitants of the 
island ; yet enough remain which we may with good reason 
attribute to the Norwegians and Danes. They are not, 
like those tumuli, or "cairns," which are found most 
frequently in the north of Scotland, a mass of small stones 
heaped together without any filling-in of earth, but are 
formed, like our Scandinavian barrows, of earth thrown up 
to a very considerable height. As in Scandinavia, they 
are met with mostly on hills, and near the firths or sea- 
coasts, whence there is an uninterrupted view of the sea. 
To the ancient Northman it was evidently an almost in- 
sufferable thought to be buried in a confined or remote 
corner, where nobody could see his grave or be reminded 
of his deeds. The greater chief a man was the more did 
he desire that his "barrow" should lie high and un- 
inclosed, so that it might be visible to all who travelled 
by land and by sea. United with this desire to live in the 
memory of posterity, the Viking certainly also indulged the 
secret belief, that his spirit, or ghost, would at times arise 
from the barrow to look out upon that beloved sea, and to 
refresh itself, after the gloomy closeness of the grave, with 
the cool breezes which play upon its bosom. 

Some of the largest and most prominent barrows in the 
Orkneys are found about the middle of Mainland. To the 
west of the deep fiord in the middle of the east coast, 
(formerly Orre^fjord " Aurm/Sfjordr," i. e. Trout firth, 
but now called Firth), and cutting its way northwards far 
into the land, is the before-mentioned Loch of Stennis, 
with its famous old Celtic stone circles. But the largest 
of these, which lies on the ridge of a naze, or promontory 
(from Old N. " Steinsness "), is encompassed by twelve 
considerable, and partly perhaps Norwegian or Scandina- 
vian, barrows; amongst which two in particular, to the 



Sect. VII.] TUMULI IN ORKNEY. 243 

north-east and north-west of the circle, are distinguished 
by their size and circumference. As the Saga informs us 
that it was on Steinsnses that the chief, Einard Klining, 
at the instigation of Erik Blodoxe's daughter, Kagnhilde, 
killed her husband Jarl Haavard, it is not impossible that 
one of the last-named large barrows may be the jarl's 
grave. At all events it is natural enough that the Norwe- 
gians should have had a predilection for being buried on 
that lofty promontory, which was regarded even by the 
earlier inhabitants of the island as a holy place, and had 
been adorned by them with a truly imposing circle of 
immense blocks of stone. Future excavations will doubt- 
less more clearly show which of the barrows are really 
Norwegian ; but this much is certain — that the naze, with 
the circle of stones and the surrounding barrows, as well 
as the view of the three immense monumental stones, 
placed erect in a semicircle on the opposite side of Loch 
Stennis, afford a prospect not only interesting to the anti- 
quarian, but which must strike every beholder. 

Here and there, on Mainland, we meet with graves of 
the heathen times, which are not at all uncommon in the 
Orkneys and Shetland Isles. They are, however, of much 
lower elevation than those previously mentioned, and in 
general rise very little above the surface of the soil. In 
some of these, as in Shetland, besides urns, containing 
burnt bones and ~ashes, bodies have at times been found 
that have been buried without being burnt ; together with 
swords of the Scandinavian kind before described, heads 
of lances, daggers, and knives; as well as bone combs, 
bowl-formed brooches of brass, and various other orna- 
ments, evidently of Norwegian workmanship. 

Just as the barrows, or grave hills, in Mainland, indicate 
by their peculiar size that in the heathen times the island 
was the chosen place of assembly for the mightiest men in 
the Orkneys and Shetland Isles, so also do the monuments 
of the early middle ages show that it continued to main- 
tain its former pre-eminence after heathenism had ceased. 

m 2 



244 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. Til. 

Farthest towards the north-west, in the parish of Birsay, 
(Birgishera^), are to be seen considerable remains of the 
old castle, inhabited in the most ancient times by the jarls. 
Near the coast lies the Island of Brough (Burgh) of Bir- 
say, on which also are seen traces of fortifications that 
have served to protect the jarls' castle on the side of the 
sea. In the neighbourhood of this castle, Jarl Thorfin 
built a church, called Christ Church, in which both he and 
Jarl Magnus were buried. The latter, however, being 
afterwards canonized, his body was taken to Kirkwall. In 
the twelfth century, Bishop Wilhelm, the first bishop of 
the Orkneys, had jhis throne in this church. In Orphir 
(" Orfjara"), on the south coast of the island, was another 
castle where the jarls usually dwelt, until, together with 
the bishops, they fixed their abode at Kirkwall. 

This town, which lies close to an excellent harbour, and 
opposite the Island of Shapinsay, has for about seven hun- 
dred years been the capital of the Orkneys and the Shet- 
land Isles. It seems, however, to have existed even earlier, 
as a village, or small trading place. Its name, " Kirk- 
juvagr " (" Kirkevaag," Eng. Church-bay), since cor- 
rupted into Kirkwall, was derived from a church which 
stood there. The elevation of the town to be the residence 
of jarls and bishops took place in the twelfth century, after 
Jarl Ragnhild had built a large cathedral there, to which 
he caused to be conveyed the body of St. Magnus, the 
patron saint of the island, to whom the cathedral was 
consecrated. Thus the body of the saint effected for the 
town what its excellent harbour had not been able to 
accomplish. In the parish of St. Ola', within the town, 
there was formerly also a church consecrated to St. Olaf, 
the patron saint of Norway, but it has long since been 
demolished. 

The traveller cannot but dwell, when in Kirkwall, on 
the remembrance of the departed splendour of the island, 
as he views the proud ruins of the jarls' castle, which, 
however, in its last form was not built till the fifteenth 



•Sect. VII.] CATHEDRAL OF KIRKWALL. 245 

century, and of the bishops' castle, in which King Hakon 
Hakonson of Norway died on the ]6th of December, 
1263. But what is still more striking to him who has 
leisure to examine it thoroughly, is the magnificent Church 
of St. Magnus, incontestably the most glorious monument 
of the time of the Norwegian dominion to be found in 
Scotland. Only one other cathedral church in all Scotland, 
namely, St. Mungo's, in Glasgow, has in its most essential 
parts escaped perfectly uninjured from the violent religious 
commotions produced by the Reformation. The annexed 
sketch (partly after a drawing by Billings) will, at least, 
better serve to convey an idea of the remarkable appear- 
ance of this cathedral than any detailed description. Its 
length is 230 feet, its breadth 55 feet, or, if the transepts 
be included in the measurement, 101 feet, and its height 
about 50 feet. The arched vaults of the nave rest on 
28 pillars, of which the four, in particular, that bear the 
tower are distinguished by their size and tasteful forms. 

According to the Orkneyinga Saga, Jarl Ragnvald, by the 
advice of his father Kol, made a vow to St. Magnus that 
he would build a splendid church in his honour, if he 
(Ragnvald) succeeded in gaining the mastery over the 
islands. He obtained the dominion of them in the year 
1137, and immediately afterwards began to lay the founda- 
tion of St. Magnus' Church. "At first," says the Saga, " the 
work went on so rapidly that subsequently there was not 
done near so much in four or five years. Kol was the per- 
son who, in fact, defrayed the expenses of the building, 
and determined how everything was to be. But by de- 
grees, as the work proceeded, the expenses became burthen- 
some to the jarl, whose pecuniary means were much ex- 
hausted. He therefore asked his father what he should 
do ? Kol advised him to alter the law by which, upon the 
death of the owners, the jarls had hitherto succeeded to all 
the allodial land in the islands, so that the heirs had to 
redeem it, which they found very hard. The jarl, there- 
fore, summoned the inhabitants to a Thing, and offered to 



•246 



THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. 



[Sect. VII. 




Sect. VII.] CATHEDEAL OF KIRKWALL. 247 

sell them their right of Udal, so that they should no longer 
be obliged to redeem it. The matter was easily arranged 
on both sides. The jarl obtained a mark for every acre 
throughout the islands, so that there came in money enough 
for the building of the church, which is very handsome." 

History, however, as well as the building itself, teaches 
us that the whole church, as it now stands, was by no 
means the work of Kol and Ragnvald. For, first, it is 
known that the pillars farthest towards the east and west, 
marked in the annexed ground plan with the faintest shade, 
belong to additions made at a far later period (viz., as late 
as the sixteenth century); and secondly, it is not even 
decided whether Kol and Ragnvald built the whole of the 
remaining part of the church, the transepts included, or 
whether they built only that part of the present choir 
which, from the two eastern pillars of the tower, comprises 
the six nearest pillars to the east, marked on the ground 
plan with the darkest shade. Between this last-named 
portion of the choir, which is undoubtedly the oldest part 
of the church, and the portion lying to the west, whose 
pillars on the ground plan have a rather lighter shade, 
there is a perceptible difference of style. 

That zealous and skilful archaeologist, Sir Henry Dryden, 
Bart, of Canons Ashby, to whom I am indebted for the 
original of the following ground plan, likewise did me the 
favour to give me, among several large drawings, a very 
excellent, but here very reduced, section of that part of the 
choir which is certainly known to have been built by Kol 
and Ragnvald. The section is taken from the middle of 
the nave, and represents a part of the northern side walls 
nearest to one of the pillars of the tower. It enables us 
to form an idea of the very considerable size of the church, 
and of the importance of Kol's and Ragnvald's labours, as 
well as readily to perceive in what style the church was 
originally built. This style, which in England is called 
the Norman, was indeed already somewhat obsolete in 
more southern districts at the time when St. Magnus' 



us 



THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VII. 




1 



1 



Sect. VII J 



CATHEDRAL OF KIRKWALL. 



249 



Church was built ; but it was quite natural that, so far 
northwards, it should be retained somewhat longer, esne- 




~ZS" 30 



M 3 



250 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. Til. 

cially as the architect was a native of the still more 
northern country of Norway. 

The next considerable portion of the cathedral which 
might possibly have been built by Kol and Ragnvald, or at 
least about their time, and which includes the transepts, 
the two western pillars of the tower, and the six pillars 
(three on each side) farther towards the west, has, indeed, 
like the very oldest part, round arches. But in these, as 
well as in the whole architecture, a much later style is 
clearly visible. It is, as we have said, doubtful whether 
this part of the church is also to be ascribed to Kol and 
Ragnvald. " Supposing that it is (says Sir Henry Dryden, 
in a letter accompanying the drawings), I explain the dif- 
ference of scale and workmanship thus. Ronald began a 
church on a much smaller scale than the present St. Mag- 
nus. He became short of money, alienated seignorial 
rights in Orkney, got plenty of money, and went on with 
the church on a larger scale, and with better workmen 
than before. But (adds Sir Henry), though I spent 
eighteen weeks at the building, and have thought over the 
thing many times, I cannot make out the history of the 
building to my own satisfaction. There is no doubt that 
there is a great deal of copying in it; i. e., of building at 
one time in the style of an earlier one. In Scotland the 
semicircular arch is used in all styles, down to the year 
1600." In the additions made to St. Magnus' Church to 
the east and west, in the sixteenth century, round arches 
are also found between the chief pillars. 

In the winter of 1263-1264 the body of the Norwegian 
king Hakon Hakonson was deposited in the cathedral ; 
and somewhat more than twenty years afterwards the Nor- 
wegian princess Margaret (the maid of Norway), daughter 
of King Erik, the priest-hater, and of Margaret, daughter 
of the Scotch King, Alexander the Third, was buried in it. 
Upon the death of Alexander, her mother's father, in 1289, 
Margaret, though only seven years of age, became queen 
of Scotland, but died in Orkney on her passage from Nor- 



Seet.VHl.] CATHEDRAL OF KIRKWALL. 251 

way, in 1290. The cathedral naturally received the dust 
of most of the Norwegian jarls, bishops, and other mighty 
men, so long as the Norwegian dynasty lasted ; but for 
their monuments we now seek in vain. By the alterations 
and rebuilding in the interior of the church they have all 
been long since destroyed. 

For a Scandinavian, the church derives its greatest in- 
terest not only from the fact that it was founded, and partly 
built, by a Norwegian jarl, but more particularly from the 
circumstance that a Norwegian chief, the layman Kol, is 
expressly stated to have been the person " who was chiefly 
answerable for the building, and determined how every- 
thing should be." For we thus find on the British Islands, 
and far towards the North, a manifestation of the same de- 
sire to build splendid churches and convents, which farther 
southwards, as for instance in Normandy, so vividly ani- 
mated the Christian descendants of the emigrant Vikings. 
The oldest part of St. Magnus' Church will, on a close in- 
spection, show not a few resemblances to several of the 
nearly contemporary, but somewhat older, Norman churches 
in Normandy. 



Section VIII. 



Pentland Firth. — The Highlands. — Caithness. — Sutherland. — 
Dingwall. — Fear of the Danes. 

The Orkneys are separated towards the south from the 
most northern part of the Scotch Highlands by a firth 
about eight miles in breadth, called Pentland Firth (Old 
N., Petlandfjor^r, the fiord of the land of the Picts?). 
The maelstrom, or whirlpool, in this firth, where the 
currents from the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean meet, is 
at least as violent and dangerous as the " Rost," so famed 
in ancient times, between the Orkneys and Shetland. 
Even in calm weather the meeting currents raise the waves 



'25*2 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

to an astonishing height, so that at times the whole firth 
is one sheet of white foam. If it happens that the current 
runs hard against the wind, or if a severe storm blows, it 
would not be advisable for any vessel to venture out into 
the firth. In the gales of winter, particularly from the 
north-west, the sea rises to such a height where the huge 
swell of the Atlantic is inclosed between the Orkneys and 
Scotland, and beats against the coast with such force, that 
the foam is driven far into the country, even over cliffs 
that stand more than four hundred feet above the sea! 
The Island of Stroma (Old N., " Straumsey"), which has 
obtained its name from the current, lies 'about the middle 
of the firth; and by the eastern entrance of it are the 
Islands of Pentlandskerries (Old N., " Petlandsker;" or 
Danish, " Pentlandskjsere;" Eng., sunken rocks off the 
Pentland Firth), near which the waves form whirlpools 
that are still called by the inhabitants " Swelchies " (or 
Svjelg: Old N., " Svelgr;" Eng., gulf). 

The old Sagas, indeed, expressly point out the dangers 
of the Pentland Firth. Thus, when Olaf Trygveson came 
from the West to the Orkneys with the intention of Chris- 
tianizing the islands, he was obliged to run into the harbour 
of Asmundarvag (now Osmondwall) in the south of Hoy, 
because Pentland Firth was not navigable ; and on the 
return of King Hakon Hakonson from the Hebrides in 
1263, one of his ships was lost in the Rost, and another 
escaped only with the greatest difficulty. Nevertheless 
the ancient Norwegians and Danes navigated this dangerous 
firth regularly, and do not seem to have considered it as 
forming any real boundary between the Orkneys and 
Scotland. At an early period the Norwegians had settled 
themselves along the south coast of the Pentland Firth, 
and founded colonies there which soon became so prepon- 
deratingly Norwegian that they might almost be regarded 
as inseparable parts of the Orkney jarldom. On this 
account the two most northern counties of Scotland, both 
of which united originally bore the Gaelic name of Catuibh, 



Sect. VIII.] CAITHNESS. 253 

are still called after the original Norwegian forms, " Caith- 
ness" (Old N., " Katanes," the naze of Catuibh) and 
" Sutherland " (Old N., SirSrknd), or the land in the 
south; that is, as regards the Orkneys. It would be 
perfectly inexplicable, in any other way, why the north- 
western part of Scotland should be called the south land, 
or Sutherland. It is, moreover, a remarkable proof of the 
Norwegian origin of these names, that even the present 
Gaelic inhabitants do not adopt them, but always call 
Sutherland, after the old fashion, " Catuibh." For the 
sake of distinction, however, they call Caithness " Gal- 
laibh," or the stranger's land, because so many Norwe- 
gians immigrated to, and settled in, that county in prefer- 
ence to Sutherland. 

The district of Caithness, or, as it was often called in 
ancient times, " Nassset," forms a real naze, shooting out 
into the sea in a north-eastern direction. Its farthest 
point towards the north-east is called Duncansby Head 
(formerly "Dungalsnypa "), from the neighbouring Dun- 
cansby (formerly " Dungalsbcer "). The broadest bay on 
the north coast trends in between the promontories of 
Dunnet Head and Holburn Head ; the latter of which, by 
protecting Thurso Bay from western and north-western 
gales, renders it a tolerably good harbour, in a place where 
good harbours are scarce on this northern coast. Suppos- 
ing, now, that we land in the Bay of Thurso, by the town 
of that name, we soon discover the outlet of the rivulet 
called Thurso Water (Old N., " porsa," or Thorsaa, Thor's 
rivulet), which has given the easily-recognised Scandinavian 
name both to the town and bay. The town and its imme- 
diate environs afford a great number of Norwegian memo- 
rials. The Norwegian king Eistein imprisoned the 
Orkney jarl Harald Maddadson in Thurso itself. Close 
to the eastern side of the town stands a more recent 
monument, " Harald's Tower," erected over the body of 
Jarl Harald, who fell there in a battle in 1 1 90. Not far 
from thence is the mansion called Murkle (formerly 



254 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

" Myrkholl "), where, in the tenth century, Ragnhilde, the 
daughter of Erik Blodoxe and of Gunhilde, caused her 
husband, Jarl Arnfin, to be murdered. Immediately to 
the west of the town, near Scrabster (" Skarabolsta^r "), 
are to be seen the ruins of the palace formerly inhabited 
by the bishops of Caithness and Sutherland. In the 
twelfth century Bishop Ion was blinded and mutilated 
there, at the instigation of Jarl Harald. Five miles west 
of Scrabster, and close by a foaming waterfall, stands the 
mansion of " Forss," by the river Forss Water. The 
rivulet called Thorsaa runs through a valley in ancient 
times called Thorsdal (" porsdalr "), adjoining another 
valley " Kalfadalr," or Calf-dale (either the present Calder 
or Cuildal), in which Jarl Ragnvald was attacked and killed 
by Thorbjorn Klserk. In the " Dales of Caithness " 
(probably near Dale and Westdale, by Thurso Water) a 
battle was fought in the tenth century between Jarls Ljot 
and Skule, in which the latter fell. 

Similar memorials present themselves everywhere on 
the promontory, with the exception, however, of the most 
western and more mountainous part, adjoining the frontiers 
of Sutherland. This district is still inhabited by a Gaelic 
population, the remnant of the ancient inhabitants, as is 
sufficiently testified both by the Gaelic names of places 
and the Gaelic language of the people. In Caithness, as 
well as everywhere else in the British Isles, it has been the 
fate of the Gaels or Celts to be driven to the poor and 
mountainous districts, whilst more fortunate strangers 
have taken possession of the fertile plains. The whole of 
the northern and eastern part of Caithness is a rather flat 
and open country, over which the sea wind sweeps freely 
without being intercepted by woods. Fertile and well- 
cultivated arable land is mingled with heaths, marshes, 
and small lakes. Wherever the soil is capable of cultiva- 
tion, both on the coasts and in the interior, a great number 
of undoubted Norwegian names of places are still found 
scattered about, of the selfsame form as those in Orkney 



Sect. VIII.] ANTIQUITIES. 255 

and the Shetland Isles : as, for instance, those ending in 
toft (as Aschantoft, Thurdystoft, formerly " por'Sarjmpt ") 
seter ("setr"), busta, buster, or best (originally "bolsta^r"); 
but particularly in ster (sta^r). The bays, which are 
mostly small and narrow, are generally called goe (from 
"gja," an opening). The larger ones are called wick (Viig); 
whence the town of Wick, the most important hamlet in 
Caithness, derives its name ; but they are never called, as 
in the islands lately mentioned, wall (" Vagr," or " Vaag"). 
Here and there a mighty barrow lifts its head, and some- 
times—as, for instance, near Barrowston, parish of Reay — 
so extremely near the coast of Pentland Firth, that the 
spray waslies over it. In general we shall not be mistaken 
in imagining that we have found in such barrows the last 
resting-places of the daring Vikings, who, not even in 
death, could endure to be far separated from the foaming 
maelstrom. 

At times the common people dig up in these mounds 
pieces of swords and various kinds of ornaments, especially 
the peculiar bowl-formed brooches, of a sort of brass, 
which are very frequently discovered in the Scandinavian 
North, and particularly in the Norwegian and Swedish 
graves of the times of the Vikings. These are never 
found in England; and in Scotland they are discovered 
only in the Orkneys and Sutherland, as well as in some 
of the Western Islands, where the Norwegians also settled. 




Tall bauta stones are to be seen in several places in 
Caithness, to which some legend about "the Danes" is 
generally attached ; they now stand in a leaning position, 
as if mourning over the departed times of the heroic 



256 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. Till. 

age. A monument of a somewhat later period, according to 
tradition that of a Danish princess, who suffered shipwreck 
on the coast, was also formerly to be found in a church- 
yard near Ulbster. Danish fortifications, consisting partly 
of square towers, once existed along the coast, principally 
iftar the navigable inlets ; but these also have now, for the 
most part, disappeared. 

With several intervals, Caithness was subject to Nor- 
wegian jarls until some time in the fourteenth century, or 
for about as long a period as Orkney and the Shetland 
Isles. After that time, however, it does not seem to have 
been oppressed to such a degree as those islands ; which 
circumstance, in conjunction with the origiually great 
number of Norwegian settlements in the country, is the 
cause that even in the present day we are not referred 
only to inanimate memorials of the ancient Norwegian 
population. The present living inhabitants bear a decided 
and unmistakable impress of their Norwegian descent. 
The language in the plains of Caithness, and in the open 
valleys, is the same dialect of the English as is spoken in 
Orkney and the Shetland Isles, because the transitions 
from Norwegian to English have been the same. The 
people have in some parts, as in the parish of Wick, pure 
Scandinavian names : Ronald (Ragnvald), Harold, Swanson 
(Svendsen), Manson (Magnuson), and others; and their 
tall and personable figures, as well as their light hair and 
broad faces, render them a striking contrast to the shorter 
and more swarthy Highlanders. As the descendants of an 
old Gaelic and of an old Norwegian population adjoin one 
another in Caithness, we have an excellent opportunity of 
observing, on a small scale, how the Norwegians and 
Danes have actually implanted in the British Isles a more 
seafaring spirit and greater nautical skill. Even to the 
present day the Gael, in Caithness, as well as throughout 
the Highlands, has a decided aversion to the sea, nay, a 
downright fear of its dangers. It is pretty well known 
that in general, and except on the most urgent necessity, 



Sect. VIII.] HIGHLAND SEAMEN. 257 

one should not venture out into the Pentland Firth in 
boats steered and rowed by Gaels or Highlanders ; for, in 
the event of a storm, all steady command is speedily lost, 
and gives place to anxious irresolution. The descendants 
of the old Norwegians, on the contrary, who are familiar 
with the sea from childhood, and amongst whom lies Wick, 
the most important fishing station in Scotland, show them- 
selves precisely in the hour of danger the worthy sons of 
their forefathers, the ancient Vikings. It is only the man 
at the helm who speaks, and he gives his orders in a few 
decisive words. He is punctually obeyed, and the mis- 
fortune is said to be rare, if his coolness, joined to his 
knowledge of the sea and its currents, do not gain the 
victory over the violence of the storm and the turbulence 
of the billows. This seafaring population of Caithness do 
not, like the Highlanders, disdain to resort to fishing, in 
order to bring home the riches of the sea. As their 
soil, moreover, is by no means barren, and as they have 
naturally greater activity and more inclination to work 
than the Highlanders, as well as, through their English 
dialect, greater facility in their traffic with the more 
southern districts, it is not to be wondered at that the 
prosperity of Caithness manifests a great and constant pro- 
gress. We may even justly assert that the descendants of 
the Norwegians in Caithness are in a far more fortunate 
situation than their kinsmen in the Orkneys and Shetland 
Isles. 

In ancient times, a Norwegian population speaking its 
native language, was undoubtedly spread over the whole 
eastern coast of Caithness, as well as over several districts 
of Sutherland. But the English language, which in our 
times has superseded the Norwegian, ceases to be the 
common language of Caithness immediately to the south 
of the parish of Wick. A line drawn from Clyth Ness, in 
a north-western direction to the before-mentioned mansion 
of Forss to the west of Thurso, will indicate, as near as 
may be, the boundary between Gaelic and English. If, 



, 



258 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. Till. 

however, we travel southwards from the parish of Wick, 
through the parish of Latheron, where the common lan- 
guage is already Gaelic, we, nevertheless, pass a great 
many villages and farms bearing Norwegian names; as, 
for instance, Lybster and Forse (by a waterfall). The 
mountains here begin to be higher, and to stand closer and 
closer together towards the sea. At length, after passing 
the deep valley of Berrydale (Old N., "Berudalr"), and 
the beautiful wood-crowned banks of its river, we ascend 
the steep mountain ridge called " the Ord of Caithness," 
which runs boldly out into the sea, and forms a natural 
boundary between the narrow projecting promontory of 
Caithness aud the broader Sutherland. 

The first large valley in Sutherland to the south of this 
mountain ridge is Helmsdale, which is watered by a river 
of no mean size. That Helmsdale is a Norwegian name 
(in the Sagas " Hjalmundsdalr ") is at once evident from 
the present Gaelic inhabitants calling the valley in pure 
Gaelic, " Strath Ullie," or with a strange confusion of lan- 
guage, Strath Helmsdale ; for as Strath signifies in Gaelic 
a valley or dale, the word dale is added both at the 
beginning and end. It is a similar repetition which we so 
often hear when the " Orkney Isles " are spoken of, in the 
original language " Orkno," but which, translated as now 
used, is Orkno Oerne (or the " Orkney-islands-islands "). 
Along Helmsdale Eiver several places are met with whose 
original Norwegian names are still to be discerned; as, 
for instance, Eilderabol, Gilaboll, Dviaboll, and Leiraboll. 
All these have the ending bol, which is peculiar to a 
number of Norwegian names of places in Sutherland and 
in some of the Hebrides ; but which, in Caithness, the 
Orkneys, and Shetland Isles, as well as in Lewis and 
several of the Hebrides, appears in the longer form of 
11 bolsta^r." To the north-west of Helmsdale are the 
vales of Kildonan, which run up as far as the Vale of 
Strathmore in Caithness. Here, it is supposed, on the 
frontiers of Caithness and Sutherland, lay " Eisteinsdalr," 



Sect. VIII.] SUTHEELAND. 259 

so famed in history as the spot where the Scotch king 
William encamped in the year 1198. It is, however, very 
uncertain whether " Easterdale " in Strathmore be in any 
way connected with the name of Eisteinsdal. 

On leaving Helmsdale the coast opens, and fertile and 
beautiful fields begin to expand themselves. Past Mid- 
garty and Wester Gartie (the middle and western Gaard, 
or farm, from Old TV. "gar^r "?) the road runs along the 
shore of the Bay of Dornoch (an arm of the " Breidifjordr," 
or broad firth mentioned in the Sagas, in which the Moray 
Firth is also included) to the little village of Brora, which 
is built on a considerable river, and where for a long 
period the only large bridge in Sutherland was to be found. 
It was possibly from this circumstance that the Nor- 
wegians gave the village its name ("Brura," the bridge 
rivulet). A river in Iceland is also still called Brura, from 
a bridge which crosses it. The ancient seat of the Earls 
of Sutherland, Dunrobin (Kobin's tower, from dun, a 
tower), lies on the sea-shore, in the neighbourhood of 
Brora, surrounded by fine corn-fields and considerable 
tracts of woodland. The latter, however, were planted at 
a recent period. In the background rise considerable 
mountains, covered with heath. In this place, so highly 
favoured by nature both as regards scenery and fertility, 
the Norwegian jarls who ruled over Sutherland un- 
doubtedly had one of their chief residences ; as, for in- 
stance, Sigurd Jarl, a brother of Kagnvald More-Jarl, 
Sigurd the Stout (+ 1014), and his son Thorfin (+ about 
1064). Norwegian antiquities, like those discovered in 
Caithness, are found in graves near Dunrobin, particularly 
the well-known bowl-formed brooches or buckles. In the 
neighbourhood several places with Norwegian names can 
be pointed out ; for instance, just south of Dunrobin, in 
the fertile valley by the river Fleet, Mickle Torboll and 
Little Torboll (from Thor and hoi); and on the coast, 
Skelbo, Skibo, and Embo (from bol, or perhaps more cor- 
rectly from beer, bo). Sigurd, the first conqueror of Suther- 



260 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

land, is said to have extended his dominion as far as 
Ekkjalsbakke. As bakki in the ancient language signifies 
the bank of a river, there cannot be the least doubt that 
Ekkjal is the river Oykill, which still forms the southern 
boundary of Sutherland. Sigurd himself is said to have 
been interred at Ekkjalsbakke. He gained the victory in 
a foray over the Scotch jarl Melbrigd, and cut off his 
head, which, in the overweening pride of his triumph, he 
hung to his saddle ; but a sharp tooth that projected from 
the head chafed his leg, and caused a wound which proved 
his death. On different parts of the banks of the Oykill 
numerous barrows are seen, indicating the many battles 
that have been fought in ancient times on the frontiers of 
Sutherland. But nobody is able to point out the barrow of 
Sigurd Jarl ; the tradition relating to it has vanished with 
the Norwegian population. 

For the rest, names of places prove that the Nor- 
wegians had also settled themselves along the coast to the 
south of the Oykill. On the narrow naze called Tarbet 
Ness, between Dornoch and Cromarty Firths, are the vil- 
lages of Arboll and Wanby, as well as the town of Tain, 
whose Gaelic name, " Bailed Dhuich " (or St. Duthus' 
Town), shows at once that " Tain " must be of foreign 
origin. Tain is, moreover, a corruption of " ping," a 
Thing; and in like manner the somewhat considerable 
town of Dingwall, at the extremity of Cromarty Firth, 
was originally called "pingavollr," or Thingwalla ; whence 
the remarkable fact is evident, that the Norwegians were 
once sufficiently numerous in these districts to have both 
an inferior Thing (Tain) and a superior one (Dingwall). 
Dingwall, like Tain, besides its original Norwegian name, 
has also the Gaelic one of Inverphaeron. As the Nor- 
wegians, therefore, must have permanently possessed con- 
siderable tracts in these districts, it is clear that their set- 
tlements on the east coast of Scotland must have extended 
quite down to Inverness-shire and Moray. The before- 
mentioned stronghold of Burghead in Moray, which the 



Sect. VIII.] NAMES OF PLACES. 261 

Northmen maintained to the last extremity, lies pretty close 
to the east of Cromarty Firth, the inlet to Dingwall. 

As the Norwegian language and other Norwegian cha- 
racteristics have given way to the Gaelic tongue, manners, 
and customs, in the former Norwegian districts on the 
north coast of Scotland, from Clyth Ness in Caithness to 
Dingwall on the Firth of Cromarty, we can scarcely be 
surprised that the north coast of Sutherland, whose rocks 
and heaths offered much fewer allurements to the Nor- 
wegians than the fertile valleys and plains of the east 
coast, and which were therefore far less colonized by them, 
should have preserved distinct traces of these foreign con- 
querors only in a few names of places. A remarkable 
instance of the Gaelic language having expelled the Nor- 
wegian is to be found immediately on the borders of 
Caithness, in the valley of Halladale. In a river there 
are two waterfalls, of which the uppermost is called Fors- 
inard, and the lower one Forsindin. In both these names 
the Norwegian " Fors " is not to be mistaken ; but Gaelic 
terminations have in later times been added by the Gaels, 
so that Forsinard now signifies the upper Fors, and 
Forsindin the under, or lower, Fors. Halladale is like- 
wise frequently called by the additional Gaelic name of 
Strath—" Strath Halladale." 

This much, however, is clear, that the whole of the north 
and west coast of Sutherland was once colonized by Nor- 
wegians. Besides various names of places west of Hal- 
ladale, which likewise end in dale, such as Armadale, 
Swordale, and Torrisdale, it is surprising that we should 
still meet with pure Norwegian names on four of the 
largest firths of the north-west of Sutherland; viz., on the 
north coast the "Kyle of Tongue" (from " tunga," a 
tongue of land, a naze), together with the adjoining vil- 
lage, Kirkiboll (Kirkebolet) ; further, Loch Eriboll, with 
the large farm of Eriboll (the hoi on the Eir, or tongue of 
land, from the Old N. " eyri"); the Kyle of Durness, or 
Dyrnses, with the bol, or dwelling, of Crossboll; and 



262 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. Till. 

lastly, on the west coast, not far from Cape Wrath, Loch 
Laxford (Laxfjorden, or the Salmon Firth; Old N,, 
"LaxafjorSr "). " Loch " is the Gaelic name for a lake or 
firth, and consequently, in Loch Laxford, expresses tauto- 
logically the existence of a fiord or firth ; just as the name 
'■ valley " is twice expressed in Strath Helmsdale and 
Strath Halladale. The last three of the above-mentioned 
firths seem to have been of much importance to the Nor- 
wegians. There is an excellent harbour in Loch Eriboll, 
which is still frequented by numerous ships. The neigh- 
bourhood round Loch Durnes afforded excellent oppor- 
tunities for hunting the deer, particularly on Durnses 
itself, which exteuds between Loch Durnes and the 
Atlantic up to Cape Wrath [Old N., " Hvarf "), and which, 
still later in the middle ages, was celebrated for its ex- 
cellent deer. Loch Laxford, which obtained its name 
from the salmon (Lax) in the river and at its mouth, is 
commonly known to the present day as one of the rivers 
in Scotland most abounding with that fish. Several 
isolated rocks in the sea by the coast of Sutherland are 
called, as in the Shetland Isles, " stacks ;" and in several 
names of islands we meet with the Scandinavian sker or 
skjar ; such as Skerroar (Skjseroerne, the rock islands); 
and in Loch Eriboll, Dhusker, Skerron, and others. A 
little island near the middle of the west coast is called 
Calva {Old N., " Kalfey," or the Calf Island), a name fre- 
quently given by the Northmen to small islands that lay 
in the neighbourhood of a larger one (for instance, the 
Calf of Man). For the rest, Calva is one of the last 
decidedly recognisable Scandinavian names of places on 
the west coast of Sutherland. The real Norwegian popu- 
lation evidently ceased at Laxfjord. Norwegian names of 
places are scarcely to be found on the coasts of the High- 
lands to the south of Sutherland. The country there was 
so wild, rocky, and remote, that foreign conquerors could 
only with the greatest difficulty have maintained a posi- 
tion against the Highlanders, who were always prepared to 






Sect. VIII.] TRADITIONS ABOUT THE DANES. 263 

make sudden and dangerous attacks from the mountains in 
the interior. Aware of this, the Norwegians seem to have 
limited themselves, on the western shores of the Highlands, 
chiefly to the levying of provisions along the coast, and to 
the plundering of cattle and other property. Eound about 
the mouths of the Highland firths are still to be seen the 
remains of old castles, which the Scotch kings, and par- 
ticularly Alexander the Second, are said to have built, in 
order to prevent " the Danes " from making these devas- 
tating descents. 

The memory of the conquests and predatory incursions of 
the Norwegians, or " Danes," is still preserved in a remark- 
able degree among the. poorer classes in Sutherland, as well 
as in the rest of the Scottish Highlands. Numberless tra- 
ditions are in circulation respecting the levying of provisions 
by "the Danes;" and barrows, or cairns, are not unfre- 
quently pointed out, in which a Scandinavian prince, or 
king's son, killed by the natives whilst on some Viking 
expedition, is said to be buried. Besides the usual cruelties 
ascribed to the Danes in the traditions of the Lowlands, 
and of England, they are here accused, into the bargain, of 
having burnt the forests, and thus caused that want of wood 
which acts so injuriously on the climate of the Highlands. 
In proof of this.it is adduced that roots and trunks of 
trees, sometimes perceptibly scorched, are discovered in 
the turf-bogs of the Highlands. It is not considered that 
similar discoveries are very common in other countries, as, 
for instance, in Denmark itself; where trunks of trees, 
especially firs, have been dug up, precisely as in the Scotch 
Highlands. They are the produce of vegetative processes 
in the pre-historical times ; and the apparent scorching 
has been produced either by accidental fires, or more, pro- 
bably, by the simple mode of felling trees in use among 
the aboriginal inhabitants of Europe; who, like certain 
savage tribes at the present day, for want of metal tools, 
were obliged to burn the trunks of trees which they wished 
to fell. 



264 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. VIII. 

By way of amends, the Danes have now and then the 
honour of being regarded in the Highlands as having been 
the teachers of the natives. One of the first jarls of the 
Orkneys was, according to the legends, called by the name 
of Torf Einar, because he was the first who caused turf 
to be dug on a point of land (Torfnses) in Scotland. This 
promontory, probably the present Tarbet Ness, was at all 
events either in Caithness or Sutherland ; and it is cer- 
tainly a remarkable coincidence, that the common people 
of that district still relate that " the Danes " taught them 
to burn turf. We likewise hear at times that " the Danes " 
taught the use of hand querns, or hand-mills ; nay, even 
that the favourite national instrument of the Highlanders, 
the bagpipes, was originally introduced by the Danes. In 
short, if anything, whether good or bad, be of doubtful 
origin, it is frequently attributed to " the Danes." 

But it is peculiar to the north-western and most remote 
districts of the Highlands, that the common people still 
harbour no small degree of dread lest " the Danes " should 
return, and repeat their cruel devastations. About thirty 
years ago (according to J. Loch, " An Account of the Im- 
provements on the Estate of the Marquis of Stafford," 
London, 1820, 8vo), English engineers were employed in 
measuring all the heights in Sutherland. This caused 
much sensation among the natives, who thought that these 
engineers were sent by the Danes to make maps and plans 
of the country, previously to the arrival of the Danish 
army. They imagined that the king of Denmark had an 
old feud with the Mackays, and that he was now coming to 
take a sanguinary revenge on the whole clan. 

During my stay in Sutherland I had repeated occasion 
to convince myself not only that the fear of the Danes 
has not yet died away there, but also that tradition has 
connected with them things with which they had nothing- 
whatever to do. 

Close outside the town of Dornoch, on the east coast of 
Sutherland, there stands a stone pillar in an open field, 



S6ct. VIII.] FEARS OF A DANISH INVASION. 265 

which is simply the remains of one of those crosses so fre- 
quently erected, in Roman Catholic times, in market-places. 
As a matter of course, the arms of the jarl s of Suther- 
land are carved on one side of the stone, and on the other 
are the arms of the town — a horse-shoe. Tradition, how- 
ever, will have it that the pillar was erected in remem- 
brance of a battle fought on this spot, in which the Jarl of 
Sutherland commanded against " the Danes." In the 
heat of the battle, while the Jarl was engaged in personal 
combat with the Danish chief, his sword broke ; but in this 
desperate situation he was lucky enough to lay hold of a 
horse-shoe that accidentally lay near him, with which he 
succeeded in killing his adversary. The horse-shoe is said 
to have been adopted in the arms of the town in remem- 
brance of this feat. In the cathedral church of Dornoch is 
a carved stone monument of the middle ages, representing 
one of the ancient bishops who once resided in Dornoch. 
He also is said to have fallen in the same battle, but my 
authority, the person who showed me over the church, 
added : — " I am proud to tell that the Danes were 
defeated." 

Having employed myself in examining, among other 
things, the many so-called " Danish " or Pictish towers on 
the west and north-west coast of Sutherland, the common 
people were led to believe that the Danes wished to re- 
gain possession of the country, and with that view in- 
tended to rebuild the ruined castles on the coasts. The 
report spread very rapidly, and was soon magnified into 
the news that the Danish fleet was lying outside the sunken 
rocks near the shore, and that I was merely sent before- 
hand to survey the country round about ; nay, that I was 
actually the Danish King's son himself, and had secretly 
landed. This report, which preceded me very rapidly, had, 
among other effects, that of making the poorer classes avoid, 
with the greatest care, mentioning any traditions connected 
with defeats of the Danes, and especially with the killing 
of any Dane in the district, lest they should occasion a 

N 



266 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IX. 

sanguinary vengeance when the Danish army landed. 
Their fears were carried so far that my guide was often 
stopped by the natives, who earnestly requested him in 
Gaelic not to lend a helping hand to the enemies of the 
country by showing them the way; nor would they let 
him go till he distinctly assured them that I was in pos- 
session of maps correctly indicating old castles in the 
district which he himself had not previously known. This, 
of course, did not contribute to allay their fears ; and it is 
literally true, that in several of the Gaelic villages, par- 
ticularly near the firths of Loch Inver and Kyle-Sku, we 
saw on our departure old folks wring their hands in despair 
at the thought of the terrible misfortunes which the 
Danes would now bring on their hitherto peaceful 
country. 



Section IX. 



The Hebrides. — The Northern Isles : Lewis and Harris ; (Naes) ; 
Skye. — Ossian's Songs. — Iona. 

The rocky western coast of the Highlands south of Suther- 
land was not, as I before mentioned, permanently inha- 
bited by the Norwegians. They had, indeed, regular set- 
tlements on the west coast, but these were on the islands. 
They were here secure from the sudden attacks of the 
Gaels, or Highlanders, who, generally speaking, would 
scarcely have ventured out on a sea which then swarmed 
with Vikings. The farther, therefore, the islands were 
from the mainland, so much the more secure would the 
Norwegian settlers be, and so much the greater, in effect, 
did their colonies become. By degrees they settled them- 
selves on all the islands along the west coast, from Lewis 
to Man, which they called under one name, " SirSreyjar," 
or the southern islands, from their situation with regard 
to the Orkneys and Shetland Isles. Sometimes, however, 
they did not reckon Man among them, and then divided 



Sect. IX.] LEWIS AND HARRIS. 267 

the rest of the islands into two groups, in such a manner, 
that only the islands to the south of Mull were called 
" Su^reyar," whilst Mull itself, and the islands to the 
north, obtained the name of " NorSreyar." The Irish, 
and the rest of the Gaels, on the contrary, after the con- 
quest of the islands by the Norwegians, called them 
" Inis Gal " (the foreigners' isles). 

The most northern and largest of the northern isles was 
the extensive one which forms the present Lewis and 
Harris (the "Ljo^hus" of the Sagas). It is separated 
from Scotland by the broad, stormy, and troubled channel 
called the Minch. The southern part of it only, or Harris, 
where the mountains reach the height of between two and 
three thousand feet, can be called mountainous, for the 
rest of the island is rather flat, devoid of wood, and covered 
with heaths and moors. Some good arable land is, how- 
ever, to be met with here and there along the coasts. 
Even in very early times this island was very densely in- 
habited by the Gaels, of which, among other things, some 
immense rows of stones, near Callernish, bear witness. In 
like manner, the Norwegians must, at a later date, have had 
considerable colonies in it. On this head we must not, of 
course, implicitly rely on the numerous traditions related by 
the common people about thelandingof " the Danes," their 
rising power, and subsequent overthrow. But, what is 
more certain, the names of not fewer than about ten large 
lakes in the island still retain the Norwegian termination 
vat (" vatn," Vand, water) ; and three of the largest are 
called Loch Langavat (the long water). Several coves 
(Vige) in Harris are called vagh (" vagr"); as Groesavagh, 
Flodavagh; and in Lewis wick, as Sand wick (Sand vig; Eng., 
Sand-bay), and Norwick (Nordvig; Eng. North-bay). To 
these may be added a great number of Norwegian names of 
places ending in stra or sta (sta^r, stead) ; as Little Scarris- 
tra, Meickle Scarristra (Harris) ; Erista, Mangersta (Lewis) ; 
in host (bolsta^r), as, in Harris, Nisibost, Hagabost, Chilli- 
bost; and in Lewis, Callbost, Habost, Luirbost, Cross- 

N 2 



268 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IX. 

bost, Melbost, Garrabost, and others (in all about thirteen). 
Further, we find such names asLaxay (Laxa, Laxaa; Eng., 
Salmon river), Laxdale, Nether Holm and Upper Holm, 
Tong (tunga), &c. These Norwegian names of places are 
met with as well towards the south and west as on the 
east coast, where they are most numerous about Loch Sea- 
forth (SaefjbrSr), and in the vicinity of the little town of 
Stornoway. But they are chiefly concentrated at one point, 
the most northern in the island, in a district which still 
retains the pure Norwegian name of " Ness." 

On this Naze, or promontory, are the lakes Langavat 
and Steapavat ; the valleys Dibidale, Eorodale, North Dell, 
and South Dell ; the manors and towns Skegersta, Swain- 
bost, Habost, Cross, and at the farthest extremity Oreby 
or Eoropie (" Eyribcer," the town on the Eir or Naze?); 
with the adjacent headland of Eaven, which may possibly 
have been called after Odin's sacred bird. At all events, 
there is good ground for assuming, from these names of 
places, that the promontory had a pre-eminently Nor- 
wegian population, which, indeed, is unmistakably appa- 
rent even at the present day. 

Throughout Harris and Lewis, for instance, the Gaelic 
inhabitants are small, dark-haired, and in general very 
ugly. But no sooner do we arrive at Ness, than we meet 
with people of an entirely different appearance. Both the 
men and women have in general lighter hair, taller figures, 
and far handsomer features. I visited several of their 
cabins, and found myself surrounded by physiognomies so 
Norwegian, that I could have fancied myself in Scandi- 
navia itself, if the Gaelic language now spoken by the 
people, and their wretched dwellings, had not reminded 
me that I was in one of those poor districts in the north- 
west of Europe where the Gaels or Celts are still allowed 
a scanty existence. The houses, as in Shetland, and 
partly in Orkney, are built of turf and unhewn stones, 
with a wretched straw or heather roof, held together by 
ropes laid across the ridge of the house, and fastened with 



Sect. IX.] NORWEGIAN COLONY IN NESS. 269 

stoues at the ends. The houses are so low, that one may 
often see the children lie playing on the side of the roof. 
The family and the cattle dwell in the same apartment, 
and the fire, burning freely on the floor, fills the house 
with a thick smoke, which slowly finds its way out of the 
hole in the roof. The sleeping-places are, as usual, holes 
in the side walls. 

It is but a little while ago that the inhabitants of the 
Naze, who are said to have preserved faint traditions of 
their origin from Lochlin (called also in Ireland, Lochlan), 
or the North, regarded themselves as being of better de- 
scent than their neighbours the Gaels. The descendants 
of the Norwegians seldom or never contracted marriage 
with natives of a more southern part of the island, but 
formed among themselves a separate community, distin- 
guished even by a peculiar costume, entirely different from 
the Highland Scotch dress. Although the inhabitants of 
Ness are now, for the most part, clothed like the rest 
of the people of Lewis, I was fortunate enough to see the 
dress of an old man of that district, which had been pre- 
served as a curiosity. It was of thick coarse woollen stuff, 
of a brown colour, and consisted of a close-fitting jacket, 
sewn in one piece, with a pair of short trousers, reaching 
only a little below the knees. It was formerly customary 
with them not to cover the head at all. In a carefully 
compiled Scotch and English guide book (Anderson's 
Guide, 1842) it is stated, that "The islanders of the 
northern part of Lewis, with their long, matted, and un- 
combed hair, which has never been restrained by hat or 
bonnet from flowing as freely in the wind as their ponies' 
manes, and their true Norwegian cast of countenance, 
form living portraits of the ancient Norsemen. The other 
inhabitants are chiefly of Celtic origin." The difference 
between the descendants of the Gaels and of the Nor- 
wegians is consequently so apparent that it is as striking 
to a Scotchman or an Englishman as to a Scandinavian. 

It is said on the island that the inhabitants of Ness are 



270 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IX. 

more skilful fishermen and better sailors than the rest of 
the men of Lewis. However that may be, as a pretty 
numerous Norwegian population on it has long kept itself 
unmixed and distinct from the Gaels, it is not improbable 
that those men of Lewis who are related to have formerly 
harried Shetland, until they were entirely defeated in a 
great battle in Mainland, may have been inhabitants of 
Ness, who, after the custom of the ancient Norwegians, 
went on expeditions beyond sea, either to gain booty, or, 
more probably, to decide some old dispute by the sword. 
That men of Lewis, of Gaelic descent, who have never 
liked the sea, but, on the contrary, always feared it, should 
have ventured repeatedly, and in great numbers, so far as 
Shetland, altogether exceeds belief. 

On the coasts of Lewis and Harris are several small 
islands, with still recognisable Norwegian names, such as 
Calvay ("Kalfey"), Pabbay ("Papey"), Skarpa (Skar- 
pey), Scalpay (Skalpey), together with the places called 
Meathallybost, Bernera (Bjarnarey), and others. In the 
south-west there are three large islands in a row ; North 
Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist (in the Sagas "Ivist"), 
where there are also evident traces of a Norwegian popu- 
lation. A small island to the west of North Uist is called 
Kirkibost (Kirkjubolsta^r) ; on Benbecula there are the 
lakes Loch Ollevate and Langavat, as well as the Vaage, or 
inlets, Uskevagh, Kenlerevagh, and Biavagh ; and on South 
Uist there are likewise lakes and inlets called vat and vagh ; 
to which may be added such names of places as Frobast, 
Kirkidale, Hillisdale, and lastly, a mountain called Heckla, 
probably from the well-known volcanic mountain in Ice- 
land. In a bay in the middle of South Uist are the 
islands Calvay and Pabbay. There is still a great num- 
ber of small isles on the coasts of these islands, whose 
names in a greater or less degree all betray their Nor- 
wegian origin; for instance, Grimsa ("Grimsey"), Barra 
(" Barey"), Lingay (" Lyngey"), Hellesay (" Hellisey"), 
Eriskay (" Eiriksey' 1 ), and others. The Norwegians 



Sect. IX;] ISLE OF SKYE. 271 

must even have visited the little island of St. Kilda, which 
lies about eighty miles west of Lewis; at least, two of 
the often-mentioned and peculiarly Scandinavian bowl- 
formed brooches have been discovered on the island ; one 
of them I have seen in the Andersonian Museum, in 
Glasgow. Similar brooches were also found, with a 
skeleton, in the island of Sangay, between Harris and 
North Uist. 

To the east of North and South Uist is the large island of 
Skye (" SkrS"), separated from the Highland mainland by 
a narrow sound (" SkrSsund"). Between its more northern 
part and the mainland, where the sea is broader, are the 
islands of Rona, Raasay (" Hrauneyjar "), Scalpa (" Skal- 
pey"), Pabba ("Papey"), and Longa ("Langey"). Skye, 
towards the south, is remarkable for its numerous and 
lofty mountains, whose beautiful forms are visible at a 
great distance. Towards the north the island becomes 
gradually flatter and broader. In the west and north- 
west parts it is indented by deep firths, round which are 
to be found the most fertile districts in the island. The 
east coast, on the contrary, is not so capable of cultivation, 
as it has large tracts of moorland heath and sand. The 
Norwegians, therefore, advisedly chose to settle on the 
western and north-western firths, which, besides being 
more fertile, were not so exposed to the attacks of the 
Gaels as the eastern and south-eastern coast, which very 
nearly approach the mainland. Not a few Scandinavian 
names of places may be still clearly recognised near Loch 
Snizort, such as Scuddeburgh, Skabost, Braebost, and, 
near a waterfall, Forscachregin (the Norwegian Fors with 
a Gaelic termination). By Dungevan Loch are the inlets 
Kilmaluag and Altivaig, and the villages Husabost, 
Collbost, and Nisabost. By Loch Bracadale (the " Ves- 
trifjorSr" of the Sagas) are Fors, Orbost, Collbost, and 
Eabost. By Loch Harporth, Carabost ; and by Loch Eynort, 
Husedalebeg and Husedalemore ; which latter, in a mix- 
ture of Norwegian and Gaelic, signify little and great 



273 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. Sect. IX. 

Huusdal (Housedale); and, with a similar mixture, Ghiona- 
forsenary. A little more inland is the valley of Tunga- 
delebeg, where the Gaelic beg (little) is added to the 
Norwegian Tungadal. 

From the frequent Gaelic terminations and corruptions 
of the Norwegian names, it is sufficiently evident that the 
Norwegian language has lost its former dominion in the 
island, and that the Gaelic has resumed its ancient pre- 
eminence. The western districts of Skye, as well as 
the previously-mentioned Norderoer, or northern islands, 
from Lewis to Barrahead (which last are often called 
under one name, "the Long Island"), are precisely those 
places in the Highlands where the Gaelic tongue is most 
unmixed, and where the greatest quantity of old Gaelic 
traditions and songs still survives among the people. It 
was here also, that a great number of the world-renowned 
songs of Ossian were first composed. It is true we no longer 
hear the people sing them, but there can nevertheless be 
scarcely any doubt, particularly if we regard the perceptible 
traces of the aueient metre in the Gaelic texts, that the 
so frequently and warmly disputed edition by Macpherson 
is really founded on ancient songs, although these may 
have been somewhat altered by lapse of time, and by 
a not very happy translation. They have quite a peculiar 
interest for the Scandinavian North, from the striking 
agreement in tone and spirit which they present to several 
of the songs of the Sagas and Edda. These last, again, 
afford a strong proof of the genuineness of those attributed 
to Ossian, since the songs of the Sagas and Edda, at the 
time when Macpherson published his Ossian, were either 
not at all, or but very imperfectly known, even in Scan- 
dinavia itself, not to speak of other countries. The real 
age of Ossian 's songs is very uncertain, and very difficult 
to discover ; but this much is clear, that they indicate a 
lively intercourse between Alba (Scotland) and Loehlin 
(Scandinavia), long before the times of the Vikings, and 
previously to all historical accounts of connections between 



Sect. IX.] ISLE OF MULL. 273 

those countries. We cannot, however, venture to conclude 
from this that the Orkneys, or any other part of Scotland, 
were at so early a period inhabited by a Scandinavian 
people. That such a colonization should really have taken 
place before the time of the Vikings, which began at the 
close of the eighth century, there are not only wanting 
historical and archaeological proofs, but likewise all internal 
probability. 

Mull ("Myl") is the largest of the most southern 
Norderoer, or northern islands, but it is not richest in 
memorials of the Northmen. In the narrow strait or 
sound ("Mylarsund") which separates the island from the 
mainland, there lies straight before Tobermory, the most 
important place in the island, the little island of Calve 
(" Mylarkalfr"); and somewhat farther south of Tobermory, 
on a rivulet by the coast, are the ruins of the palace of 
Aros (from " aros;" Ban., Aarhus, the mouth of the 
rivulet or Aa), once frequently inhabited by the rulers of 
these islands, called "Lords of the Isles." Another 
river in Mull, well stocked with fish, was formerly called 
Glenforsay (Monro, "Description of the Western Isles," 
1594), from the Norwegian " forsa" (Fosaa; Eng., Water- 
fall-river), to which the Gaelic glen has since been added. 
With the exception, perhaps, of Assapoll (from -bol), in the 
south-west, the island has no Norwegian names of places. 
Of such names, however, several are to be met with on the 
islands west of Mull, particularly on Coll (" Koln"), where 
we find Crossapull, Gisapoll (from bol), Arnabost (-bol- 
sta^r), and Balehough; and on Tiree, Tyrvist, together 
with Kirkapoll, Heylipoll, Vassipoll, and Crossipoll. In 
the bay formed by Mull, towards the west, are found many 
small islands with originally Norwegian names, such as 
Ulva (" Ulfey "), together with Soriby, Gometra (" Gu^- 
mundarey"), and Staffa ("Stafey"), so famed for its 
stalactic caverns. * 

But of all the Hebrides, none is more renowned than 
Iona (Ithona, "the Waves' Island"), or Icolmkill, "the 

n 3 



274 THE [NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. IX. 

island with Columba's cells," which lies in the open At- 
lantic, near the south-west point of Mull. It is not 
distinguished either by size and ' fertility or by numerous 
and splendid ruins ; it is now but an inconsiderable island, 
with some few remains of churches, conventual buildings, 
and ancient Christian sepulchral monuments. But about 
thirteen centuries ago it was the light of the- western 
world; for, after St. Columba settled there, it became the 
central point whence Christianity diffused itself towards 
the east and north, over Scotland and the surrounding 
islands. Iona thus obtained such repute for sanctity, that 
it was said that a deluge which was to overwhelm Ireland, 
and the islands round about, would have no power to 
inundate it. Tradition adds, that, for this reason, the 
ancient Irish, Scotch, and Norwegian kings, besides mahy 
other chiefs and mighty men, both at home and abroad, 
chose Iona as their place of burial; and that at the com- 
mencement of the sixteenth century, no fewer than three 
hundred and sixty splendid stone crosses, or tombstones, 
were still to be found on the island, which, however, with 
some few exceptions, have now entirely disappeared. 

According to an old description of the island, by Dean 
Monro (1594), there was to the north of the Scotch graves 
an inscription, which ran thus : — " Tumulus regum Nor- 
wegie," or, "the tombe of the Kings of Norroway, in the 
quhilk tombe, as we find in our ancient Eriske cronickells, 
there layes eight Kings of Norroway, and also we find in 
our Eriske cronickells, that Coelus, King of Norroway, 
commandit his nobils to take his bodey and burey it in 
Colmkill, if it chancit him to die in the isles; bot he 
was so discomfitit, that ther remained not so many of 
his army as wold burey him there." By the kings of 
Norway here mentioned we must of course understand 
only the kings of the Sudreyjar, or southern islands, and 
the Irish kings of Norwegian descent. It is in itself 
very probable that these kings often desired to be buried 
in Iona, where the first bishops of the proper Sudreyjar, 



Sect. IX.] 



I0NA, OR ICOLMKILL. 



275 



" the bishops of the isles," dwelt, and whose church of 
St. Mary was consequently the chief church in the islands. 
The tombs of the kings, however, can at present scarcely 
be pointed out with certainty; we only know that they 
must have been in s the large and still visible burial-place 
consecrated to St. Oran. On this place there is likewise 
a little chapel consecrated to the same saint, which, ac- 
cording to the opinion of some, is of Norwegian workman- 
ship — a point, however, which must be very doubtful. 

In the chapel are to be seen the remains of a carved 
monument erected in the year 1489 to Lachlan Mackinnon 
(Mac Fingon), and on it, underneath the inscription, is a 
ship, which is still to be found in the family arms of the 
Mackinnons, but which is said to have been originally the 
heraldic bearing of the Norwegian kings in the Isle of 
Man. 




The Island of Iona was of special importance in ancient 
times, not only to Scotland, but to the Scandinavian North. 
From it Christianity was assuredly disseminated among 
the Norwegians in the Sudreyjar, or southern isles, the 
Orkneys, and the Shetland Isles ; whence, again, it was often 
carried by Vikings and merchants to Norway and Iceland. 
In the latter place, where not a few men from the southern 
isles were among the first colonists, there was even a 
church dedicated to St. Columba. Whilst, therefore, 



276 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. X. 

heathen Norwegians plundered and destroyed the churches 
and convents of Iona, the Christian Norwegians seem to 
have respected its sanctity. The Sagas, which call it 
" Eyin helga" (the holy island), state, that the Norwegian 
king, Magnus Barfod (Barefoot), when in his first expedi- 
tion to the Sudreyjar and Ireland, in the year 1097, he 
came to "the holy island," gave all the inhabitants a 
guaranty of peace and security, and allowed them to retain 
their possessions. It is also stated that " King Magnus 
opened the little Kolumkille Church, and went therein ; 
but that he directly locked the door again, and said that 
no one should dare to enter; and since that time the 
church has never been opened." 



Section X. 

The Sudreyjar, or Southern Isles. — Cantire. — Islay — Man. — Names of 
Places. — Runic Stones. — Kings. — Battle of Largs. — " Lords of the 
Isles." — Tynwald in Man. 

Iona was not always accounted one of the northern isles. 
Farther towards the north, on the north-west coast of 
Mull, are the islands of Treshinish, and among them a steep 
rocky island, called Caimburg, which is said to have formed, 
at all events at times, the boundary between the northern 
and southern isles, or Sudreyjar. Cairnburg is accessible 
only at one spot, and by its height above the sea it forms 
an important stronghold, which in former times was often 
numerously garrisoned. The Sagas, which call the island 
" Bjana," or " Bjarnarborg," state that it was one of those 
strong fortresses in the southern isles, the surrender of 
which was in vain demanded by King Alexander the 
Second of Scotland, from the Norwegian tributary king, 
Ion Dungadson ; and tradition still tells that " the Danes " 
often fought for the possession of this important place. 
" The Sudreyjar " (in which, among the larger islands, 



Sect.X.] SUDREYJAR, OR SOUTHERN ISLES. 277 

were included Colonsay, Oransay, Jura, Islay, Arran, Bute, 
the Cunibr Islands, and likewise the Peninsula of Can tire) 
are, strictly speaking, far from being so numerous as the 
northern islands ; but in general they are distinguished 
from these by a richer and more fertile soil, which is the 
result of their more southern and more protected situation. 
This remark applies particularly to the charming islands 
of Arran (" Hersey "), Bute (" Bot "), and the Cumbr 
Isles (Kumreyar), which lie eastwards of the Peninsula of 
Can tire (" Satiri "), at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde ; 
and which, together with the rocks, heaths, and moors of 
the Highlands, possess the woods and corn-fields of the 
Lowlands. They also enjoy a fine climate. 

But although these last-mentioned islands were often 
under the dominion of Norwegian kings and jarls, they do 
not appear to have been inhabited by a settled Norwegian 
population ; at all events, Norwegian names of places have 
disappeared from them. It is probable that they lay some- 
what too near the hostile coasts of Scotland, and somewhat 
too far from the larger Norwegian colonies, for Norwegian 
settlers steadily to maintain upon them a position against 
the Gaels; nay, the Norwegian name, "Kumreyar," the 
Cumbr Islands, seems to indicate that Cimri or Gaels 
dwelt upon them. 

Names of places on the Peninsula of Cantire, on the 
contrary, where we find Smerbys (from by), Killipol (from 
bol), Torrisdale, and the pure Norwegian Skipness, but 
more particularly on the islands outside the Peninsula, 
near the west coast of Argyle, indicate a very considerable 
Norwegian colonization. Not only have several of the 
small islands Norwegian names, as Scarba (" Skarpey ") 
and Lunga (" Langey "), but the largest and most fertile 
of them, Islay (the " II " of the Sagas), which Dean 
Monro as early as 1594 found to be fruitful, full of good 
pastures, abounding with large deer, having many forests, 
excellent hunting, and a river called Laxay (the pure Old 
N. " Laxa ") in which many salmon were caught (" with 



278 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. X. 

ane water callit Laxay, whereupon maney salmon are 
slaine "), still exhibits various traces of decidedly Norwe- 
gian settlements. On its east coast, as is usually the case 
•with the Hebrides lying nearest to Scotland, few or no 
Norwegian names of places are found ; but in the middle 
of the island is Nerby ; by Loch Indal, Lyrabolls, Scara- 
bolls, Conisby, Nerabolls, and Elister ; and by a rivulet, 
Skeba (" Skipa;" Dan., " Skibeaaen," or the ship rivulet) ; 
whilst on the west side of the island we find Olista, Cula- 
boll, &c. This agrees very well with the accounts that the 
kings and jarls of the Sudreyjar of Norwegian descent 
had one of their chief residences in Islay ; for it was quite 
natural that they should surround themselves with country- 
men on whose courage and fidelity they could rely. The 
island abounds, moreover, in traditions and pretended me- 
morials of " the Danes." Near the bay of Knoch are two 
large upright stones, called " the two stones of Islay," 
under which it is said that the Danish princess, Yula, after 
whom the island is named, lies buried. In various parts 
of the island are shown what are called " Danish " castles, 
encampments, and fortifications. It is also stated (see 
Anderson's Guide), that there is a circular mound of earth 
on the island, with terrace-formed steps, which may pos- 
sibly have once been used by the Norwegians as a Thing 
place, like a similar one in the Isle of Man. 

The chief seat of the Norwegian power on the islands 
was, however, still more southward than Islay, namely, the 
Isle of Man (the " M6n " of the Sagas), which lies in the 
Irish Channel, to the south-west of Sol way Firth, about 
midway between the coasts of Cumberland and Ireland. A 
peculiar dialect of the Gaelic tongue, called Manx, is 
spoken throughout this island, and the inhabitants have in 
general the same appearance as their Gaelic neighbours in 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. But no other of the 
western islands affords so many and such incontestible 
proofs of its having once had a very wide-spread Norwegian 
or Scandinavian population, who spoke their own language, 



Sect. X.] ISLE OF MAN. 279 

and ^ho, through a long series of years, must have been 
the predominant race. 

The highest mountain in the island, which is about 
2000 feet high, is called " Sneafell " (Norw., Sneefjeld ; 
Eng., Snow-mountain). On the east side is the rivulet 
and town of " Laxey " (Laxaa) ; in the south-east is the 
long naze, " Langness." To these may be added the bay 
called Derby Haven, which the Norwegians called "Kogn- 
valdsvagr," whence the neighbouring Ronaldsway derived 
its name. There are also the inlets of Per wick and Fles- 
wick; the islands Calf of Man, Eye (Oe), and Holm, 
near the town of Peel ; and, lastly, the villages Colby, 
Greenaby, Dal by, Kirby (Kirkeby), Sulby, and Iurby (for- 
merly " Ivorby " — Ivarsby?), &c. The proportionately 
large number of names of places ending in " by," which 
suddenly appear in Man, in contrast to the more 
northern islands, with their pure Norwegian names of 
places ending in " bol " and " bolsta^r," — which, it must 
be observed, are not to be found on Man, — is a. sort of 
proof that it received some colonists from the neighbour- 
ing old Danish Cumberland, by which means a mixed 
Norwegian-Danish population arose in the island. 

The antiquary is much surprised to find on Man not 
merely one, but several of those runic stones, with genuine 
Scandinavian inscriptions, which he may have sought for 
in vain in England and Scotland. The different districts 
of the island contain altogether about thirty ancient sculp- 
tured monuments or sepulchral crosses ; and of these at 
least thirteen have once had runic inscriptions, which in 
great part are still preserved. It is remarkable enough 
that these runic inscriptions are found exclusively in the 
more northern half of the island (at Kirk Andreas, two ; 
at Kirk Michael, four ; at Kirk Braddan, one ; and at 
Kirk Onchan, five) ; whence we may, with some degree of 
probability, conclude that, at the time when these runic 
stones were erected, the Scandinavian language was the 
most prevalent one in the northern part of the island. 



280 



THE NORWEGIANS rN SCOTLAND. 



[Sect. X. 



The chronicles, indeed, state that the Norwegian, Godred 
Crovan, who conquered Man in the year 1077, retained the 






&A 






mi 




l^=z. 




! *$J* 



■■& 






Sect. X.] KUNIC STONES IN MAN. 281 

southern part of the island for himself and his followers ; 
but the before-mentioned runic stones are certainly older 
than Godred's conquest. The inscriptions on the stones 
have hitherto been copied and explained only in a very 
imperfect manner ; but since casts in plaster have been 
taken of them, their interpretation has become incompa- 
rably easier and more simple. I have myself closely ex- 
amined and compared them in two places (at Edinburgh, 
in the Museum of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, and 
at Canons Ashby, in England, the seat of Sir Henry Dry- 
den, Bart.) ; and I have since had an opportunity to renew 
my examination of all of them, in conjunction with the 
learned Norwegian professor, P. A. Munch, to whom I am 
indebted for several very important hints relative to their 
correct interpretation (amongst others that the rune ^ , 
which in most inscriptions signifies o, must in these 
always be read as 5). 

The annexed cut, after a plaster cast, represents one of 
the finest and best preserved runic stones in Man, namely, 
at Kirk Braddan, about the middle of the island. 

The stone is fifty-seven inches high, eight inches broad 
at the base, and when the cross was whole, had a breadth 
of twelve inches at the top. Both its broad and one of 
its narrow sides are ornamented with serpents ingeniously 
interwoven, whilst the fourth side has the following runic 
inscription : 

" Thurlabr Neaki risti krus thana aft Fiaks . . . bruthur sun Jabrs." 
(" Thorlaf Neaki erected this cross to Fiak . . brother, a son of Jabr.") 

Another extremely well-preserved monumental cross, on 
which are carved various scrolls, animals, birds, and other 
things, such as horses, a stag, cows (?), swine, &c, stands 
in Andreas churchyard, and has the following inscrip- 
tion : — 

" Sandulf ein suarti raisti krus thana aftir Arin Biaurg kuinu sina." 
(*. e., " Sandulf the Swarthy erected this cross to his wife Arnbjorg.") 



282 



THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. 



[Sect. X. 



(The drawing of this mo- 
nument, as well as those 
of the following inscribed 
stones, is borrowed from 
W. Kinnebrook's " Etch- 
ings of the Runic Monu- 
ments in the Isle of Man," 
London, 1841, 8vo. But the 
faulty inscriptions in that 
book are here corrected.) 

In the middle of the vil- 
lage of Kirk Michael, close 
to the northern corner of 
the churchyard, is a stone 
not less richly sculptured 
than the preceding one, with 
all sorts of figures of stags, 
dogs, serpents, horses, horse- 
men, &c, which are placed 
round a large cross covered 
with interfacings, or scrolls. 
The inscription on it runs 
thus : — 

"Jualfir sunr Tlmrulfs ems 
Rautha risti krus thana aft Frithu 
muthur sina." (Or, "Joalf, son of 
Thorolf the Red, erected this cross 
to his mother Frida.") 

At the end of the inscrip- 
tion is carved the figure of 
a man (probably Joalf ), with 
a shield on his arm and a 
lance in his hand. (See the 
annexed cut.) 

The language of the in- 
scriptions, as well as the 
Scandinavian names which 
appear in them, — as Thor- 




Sect. X.] 



KUNIC STONES IN MAN. 



283 



laf, Arnbjbrg, Frida, and particularly the names com- 
pounded after the genuine Scandinavian fashion, as San- 
dulf the Swarthy, and Thorolf the Red,- — sufficiently prove 
that these monuments were erected by Northmen, or Nor- 
wegians, to their relatives who had died in the Isle of 
Man. A piece of runic stone in the wall of Michael's 
Church bears the name of Grim the Swarthy (" Grims 
ins Suarta ") ; and in some similar fragments of inscrip- 
tions near Kirk Onchan we find the names of Thurid 
(" Thurith raist runir," i. e., Thurith engraved runes) and 
Leif (" tra es Laifa fustra guthan son Ilan "). The well- 
known Scandinavian name, Asketil, is also found on the re- 
mains of a runic inscription in the museum in Douglas 

("p. Askitil vilti i trigu aithsaara siiu ;" i. e., whom 

Asketil deceived in security, contrary to his pledge of 
peace). At the same time, however, we may infer from 
names like Neaki, Fjak, and Jabr, that the Northmen 
must, when these inscriptions were written, have already 
mingled with the original Gaelic inhabitants of Man. 
A stone at Kirk Michael, which is ornamented with a finely 
sculptured cross, on the sides 
of which are seen a stag, a 
a dog, a harper, and two 
figures apparently in an at- 
titude of prayer, has a 
Norwegian inscription with 
purely Gaelic names, such 
as Mai Lumkun and Mai 
Muru : — 

" Mai Lumkun raisti krus 
thana eftir Malmuru fustra sin 
. . . ;" (i. e., " Mai Lumkun erected 
this cross to his foster father 
Malmor." ) 




Some hitherto inexplicable fragments of inscriptions at 
Kirk Onchan may also possibly contain Gaelic words. 
The Manx runic stones bear, both in form and workman- 



284 



THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. 



[Sect. X. 



ship, a striking resemblance to the previously-mentioned 
sculptured monuments in the Lowlands, and on the north- 
east coasts of the Highlands. Yet several of the Manx 
stones exhibit certain peculiarities ; as, for instance, the 
singular scale-covered serpents surrounded with inter- 
lacings, which do not appear in a similar form on the Scotch 
monuments. But as these serpents and interfacings very 
much agree with ornaments on different antiquities of the 
heathen times found in Scandinavia, and, as the language of 
the runic stones is pure Scandinavian, there is every reason 
to conclude that the splendid specimens on Man were 
carved by Norwegians, who, though they imitated the 
monuments in vogue in Scotland, frequently allowed their 
own characteristically fantastic ideas to display themselves 
in peculiar devices. This view is confirmed in a remark- 
able manner by a few Manx runic inscriptions, the real 
interpretation of which was first given by Professor 
Munch. On the stone at Kirk Michael, represented 
below, is the following inscription : — 

" Mail Brigdi sunr Athakans smith raisti knis thana fur salu sini sin 
brukuin Gaut girthi thana auk ala i Mann." i. e., "Malbrigd, son of 
Athakan (the) Smith, erected this cross for his soul . . . Grant made this 
(cross) and all on Man." 

According to this, Gaut, who, to 
judge from the name, was a Nor- 
wegian, erected all the crosses 
which, it must be observed, were 
at that time on Man. Another in- 
scription perfectly agreeing with 
this, though taken from a very 
miich defaced and broken monu- 
ment near Kirk Andreas, on which 
has been carved a cross with 
many scrolls (delineated in Kinne- 
brook's work, No. 8), runs as fol- 
lows : — 

" thana af Ufaig fauthur sin in Gautr girthi sunr Biarnar 

" " (N. N. erected) this (cross) to his father Ufeig, but Gaut 

Bjb'rnson made it." 




Sect. X.] EUNIC STONES IN MAN. 285 

Gaut's surname, here given, further proves his Nor- 
wegian, or Scandinavian, descent. From the language 
and manner of writing in the Manx inscriptions still ex- 
tant, we may assume that, with the exception perhaps of 
some few pieces at Kirk Michael (Mai Lumkun's inscrip- 
tion) and Kirk Onchan (Leif inscription), which, according 
to Professor Munch 's opinion, are of a somewhat later 
period, all these inscriptions were from the artist-hand of 
Gaut Bjornson. It is even prohable that several of the 
other sculptured stones in Man, which are not known to 
have had inscriptions (particularly at Kirk Onchan, Kirk 
Braddan, and Kirk Lonan; see Kinnebrook, Nos. 16, 17, 
20, 22, 23), were carved by Gaut, or at least by a Northman. 
At all events, they are somewhat different from the corre- 
sponding stones in Scotland ; and some of them (Onchan, 
20, and Braddan, 23) prove themselves to be genuine 
Norwegian runic stones, by the same peculiar figures of 
dragons and serpents as on those before described. 

The circumstance that those sculptured monumental 
stones in Man, which are Norwegian, have both runic 
writings and peculiar representations of figures, certainly 
affords a strong corroboration of the opinion before ex- 
pressed, that the sculptured monuments, generally so finely 
executed, which are found on the east coast of Scotland, 
are in fact, though called " Danish," not Scandinavian, but 
Scotch. As, on the other hand, the runic stones in Man 
have expressly preserved the name of the person who 
made them — the Norwegian skilled in runes, Gaut Bjorn- 
son, who imitated and altered the Scotch models with great 
expertness and taste— it is clear that the Norwegians in 
the remote Western Isles must not be regarded, any more 
than their kinsmen in the Orkneys and in England, as 
merely rude barbarians, living only for plunder, war, and 
bloodshed, and having no feeling for anything higher and 
nobler. The discovery of Gaut Bjornson's name may be 
regarded as an instructive addition to the proofs before 
adduced, that the cathedral in Kirkwall was originally 



286 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. X. 

founded, and partly erected, by a Norwegian layman, the 
chieftain Kol ; as well as that there existed at the same 
time in England a considerable number of Danish, or 
Scandinavian, coiners. Of the latter, as we shall see, 
there were likewise several employed by the Norwegian- 
Danish kings in Ireland. For the rest, these characteristic 
Scandinavian runic writings suffice to show that, with 
regard to the civilization then prevailing, the Norwegians 
or Danes settled in these districts were by no means defi- 
cient in education. The Northmen on the Isle of Man 
were, besides, at a very early period, Christians. Almost 
all the Manx runic stones are ornamented with the Chris- 
tian cross ; and on a defaced piece of such a monumental 
stone at Kirk Onchan we even find the words Jesus Christ 
(" Jsu Krist "). From the language of the inscriptions 
there is reason to suppose that they were for the most part 
engraved in the eleventh century. We cannot, therefore, 
doubt that Christianity must at that time have been already 
disseminated among the Scandinavian population in the 
Isle of Man. There was a bishopric in the island in very 
ancient times ; and we learn from history, as well as from 
the names of the bishops, that in the eleventh, twelfth, and 
thirteenth centuries several of them were of Norwegian de- 
scent; for instance, in 1050-1065, Roolwer(Rolf ?); 1077- 
1100, Aumond M'Olave; 1181-1190, Reginald, or Ragn- 
vald; 1203-1*226, Reginald (son of a sister of King Olaf, of 
Man); and his successor, John Ivarson. Unfortunately there 
is a gap in the chronicles of the bishops of Man from about 
the year 700 to the year 1025. Had they been perfect, we 
should possibly have been able to find Scandinavian bishops 
in the island even earlier than 1050. 

The Norwegian monuments in the Isle of Man already 
mentioned are in themselves numerous and considerable 
enough to convey an idea of the power which the Norwe- 
gians must have possessed there. At all events, the names 
of places and the ruuic stones contribute in a high degree 
to strengthen and illustrate the assertion of the Chronicles, 



Sect.X.] N0BWEG1AN KINGS IN MAN. 287 

that Norwegian kings and jarls held confirmed dominion 
in the Sudreyjar, or southern isles. When, in the ninth 
century, the Norwegian king Harald Haarfager succeeded 
in subjecting the Orkneys and the Sudreyjar, he is said to 
have appointed a viceroy or jarl in Man. During the 
tenth and eleventh centuries a long series of Norwegian 
kings ruled there, whose descent is clearly shown by their 
names; viz., Godred (Gudrod), Keginald (Ragnvald), Olave, 
Hacon, Harold, &c. In the eleventh century the connec- 
tion between these kings and the Norwegian or Scandina- 
vian kings of Dublin was so particularly close, that either 
the same, or at all events nearly-related kings, reigned 
over both Man and Dublin. 

The kings of Man were tributaries of Norway, and 
acknowledged the supremacy of that country, although in 
reality they ruled independently. At that time their 
dominion extended over the rest of the Sudreyjar. But 
in the year 1077 the Norwegian, Godred Crovan, succeeded 
in conquering Man, after a battle near " Scacafell," or 
Sky hill, in which King Fin gal, a grandson of Sygtrig 
(Sigtryg), " King of the Danes in Dublin," fell, as well as 
Sygtrig Mac Olave, the actual Danish king of Dublin. 
Godred Crovan now assumed the government of the 
islands, and appears to have declared himself perfectly 
independent of Norway. Subsequently he conquered 
Dublin also, as well as the province of Leinster in Ireland. 
In order to maintain Norway's right of supremacy, the 
Norwegian king, Magnus Barfod, shortly afterwards under- 
took an expedition to the west. He committed great 
havoc along the firths of Scotland (" SkotlandsfirSir," or 
the coasts by the Caledonian Sea), and in the Sudreyjar, 
Man, Anglesey, and Ireland, and regained the kingdom 
which his forefathers had possessed. According to a treaty 
with the Scottish king Malcolm, all the islands lying to 
the w r est of Scotland, which Magnus could approach with 
sailing vessels, were to belong to Norway. King Magnus 
accordingly caused his ship to be hauled over the narrow 



288 THE NOHWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. X. 

isthmus (SatiriserS) which connects the peninsula of Can- 
tire with the mainland, and which to the present day is 
called by the Gaels " Tarbet " (a place over which vessels 
can be dragged). The King himself sat at the helm, and 
thus acquired the peninsula, besides all the Western 
Islands. Having appointed his son Sigurd king of the 
Sudreyjar, he returned home to Norway, where, with 
several of his followers, he adopted the dress generally 
worn in the Western Isles. " They went about the streets 
with bare legs, and wore short coats and cloaks ; whence 
Magnus was called by his men Barfod, or Barbeen " (Bare- 
foot, or Barelegs), says the Icelandic historian, Snorre 
Sturleson, who, as is well known, lived in the first half of 
the thirteenth century. It is remarkable enough that this 
is the oldest account extant of the well-known Scotch 
Highland dress, whose high antiquity is thus proved. 

The Jarl Ottar, who after Magnus Barfod's expedition 
was made governor of Man, was expelled by the inhabitants 
of that island (" Manverjar "), who chose in his place an- 
other jarl named Macmanus (or Magnuson). But a civil 
war now broke out in the island, and as King Magnus 
Barfod fell in Ireland in 1103, when on a fresh expedition 
to the Western Islands, Godred Cro van's family regained 
the Manx throne. It appears, however, that they acknow- 
ledged the supremacy of Norway ; at all events, the pre- 
viously distinct bishoprics of the Sudreyjar (founded in 
838) and of Man were united after Magnus Barfod's expe- 
dition, and connected more closely than ever with Norway, 
by being subjected to the archbishopric of Trondhjem. 
From 1181 until 1334 the bishops of the Sudreyjar 
(" Episcopi Sodorenses ") were consecrated by the Arch- 
bishop of Trondhjem. In the year 1380 the bishopric of 
Man was again separated from that of the other Sudreyjar; 
but the subsequent bishops of Man have retained to the 
present day the old title of bishop of Sodor (and Man), 
taken originally from Su^reyar. 

About the same time that the proper Su^reyar were, 



Sect.X.] EXPEDITION OF KING HAKON IV. 289 

with regard to ecclesiastical matters, united with Man, 
many of them were, as to secular government, separated 
from that island ; although, since the time of Harald Haar- 
fager, all had been governed by the same kings. Jarl 
Somerled, who was related in various ways to the Norwe- 
gian chiefs on the islands, had assumed the dominion of 
Cantire, Argyle. and Lorn (the " Dalir i Skotlandsfirdi " 
of the Sagas). After a naval battle, in the year 1156, with 
the Manx king, Godred Olaveson, Jarl Somerled compelled 
Godred to resign to him all the Sudreyjar from Mull to 
Man, which possessions afterwards remained in his family 
(" Dalverja-iEtt "). His youngest son, Dugal, the founder 
of the family of the Mac Dougals of Lorn, obtained Argyle 
and Lorn, whilst Cantire and the islands were assigned to 
his eldest son Kagnvald, or Keginald. Meanwhile Godred 
Crovan's successors reigned over Man, and frequently, as it 
seems, over the islands to the north of Mull likewise, and 
particularly Lewis. They constantly sought to strengthen 
their diminished power by forming alliances with royal 
families, and other powerful races in Ireland, Scotland, 
and Norway. Thus King Harald Olafson, whose father 
King Olaf Godredson had, in the year 1230, repaired to 
King Hakon Hakonsen in Norway, and taken the oath of 
allegiance to him, married King Hakon's daughter Cecilie; 
but on the voyage home from Norway in 1248, the royal 
couple perished in the dangerous Somburg Rost, to the 
south of Shetland, together with the Manx bishop, Law- 
rence, and a numerous retinue of Manx chiefs. Harald's 
brother, King Ragnvald, was shortly afterwards murdered 
by the knight Ivar, and was succeeded on the tbrone by 
his youngest brother Magnus, who was the last of Godred 
Crovan's descendants, and above all the last Norwegian 
who filled the throne of Man. 

The Scotch kings had long been aiming at the expul- 
sion of the Norwegians from the north and west of Scot- 
land. Alexander the Second (1214-1249) repeatedly sent 
ambassadors to King Hakon, in Norway, offering to pur- 

o 



290 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect.X. 

chase the right of that kingdom to the Norwegian posses- 
sions in Scotland ; but as they did not succeed, Alexander 
declared that he would not rest till he had planted his 
banner on the farthest point of the Norwegian dominions 
in Scotland. But whilst he lay with part of his army at the 
island of Kerrera (" Kjarbarey "), not far from Mull, he fell 
sick and died, after which the army was disbanded. However, 
his successor, Alexander the Third (1249-1289), zealously 
prosecuted the plan for the expulsion of the Norwegians. 
The Scots having at length begun to ravage the Sudreyjar, 
and particularly the Isle of Skye, with fire and sword, 
King Hakon, when the tidings reached Norway, equipped 
a large fleet, and issued orders for an expedition to avenge 
the attack that had been made on his dominions. 

Accordingly, in 1263, he sailed with a large and well- 
appointed force to Elwick(" Ellidarvik ") on Shapinsay, in 
the Orkneys, and thence to Ragnvaldsvaag ("Rognvalds- 
vagr ") under South Ronaldshay, near Pentland Firth. 
He had despatched several ships before him to the Sud- 
reyjar, whose crews devastated the coasts of Sutherland, 
particularly the district around the firth of Durness 
(" Dyrnes "), where they destroyed a castle and burnt 
more than twenty mansions. The King then sailed to the 
before-mentioned isle of Kerrera, where he assembled his 
fleet, consisting of about 200 ships. King Magnus from 
Man, and King Dugal from the Sudreyjar, joined him 
there ; but Ion, the other king of the Sudreyjar, or, as he 
was called in Scotland, Ewen, was exempted by King 
Hakon from fighting against the Scots. King Hakon 
permitted his men to devastate the islands and coasts of 
the Firth of Clyde. Some of his chiefs sailed up Loch 
Long (" SkipafjorSr "), and hauled their ships over the 
narrow strip of land, called Tarbet, into Loch Lomond 
(" Lokulofni "), whence they harried the surrounding dis- 
trict of Lennox (" Lofnach "). Meanwhile verbal mes- 
sages passed between the Norwegian and Scottish kings, 
but without leading to any reconciliation. The time was 



Sect. X.J BATTLE OF LAEGS. 291 

thus whiled away till late in the autumn, when King Hakon 
anchored with his fleet under Cumbrey in the Clyde, op- 
posite the hamlet of Largs. Here he was assailed by 
such a furious storm, that his Norwegians, unacquainted with 
the equinoctial gales on the west coast of Scotland, ima- 
gined that the tempest had been evoked by witchcraft. 
Some of the King's ships were driven ashore near Largs, 
when the Scots immediately began to attack them. As the 
Scotch king had in the meantime arrived on the spot 
with a large army, a fierce battle took place on the plain 
near Largs (3rd of October, 1263), in which the Norwe- 
gians, who were exhausted by their endeavours to save 
their ships, and who on account of the storm could not 
avail themselves of their whole force, were overpowered. 
King Hakon then sailed with the remainder of his fleet 
round Cape Wrath to " GoafjorSr " (undoubtedly the ex- 
cellent harbour in Loch Eribol in Sutherland), and after 
suffering much from violent storms and tempests, at length 
again reached Ragnvaldsvaag in the Orkneys. He now 
prepared to pass the winter in Kirkwall, where, however, 
he shortly afterwards died (16th December, 1263). 

The battle of Largs, the last combat in these western 
regions between the kings of Scotland and Norway, was 
of a decisive character. The kings in Sudreyjar and 
Man, who could now no longer venture to reckon upon 
adequate protection from Norway, submitted to the domi- 
nion of the Scotch king. King Magnus Hakonson, of 
Norway, found it most advisable (1266) to cede Norway's 
supremacy over the Sudreyjar and Man to the Scottish 
crown for the sum of 4000 marks sterling and a yearly 
tribute of 100 marks. But the Scots did not obtain imme- 
diate possession of Man. King Magnus died there in 
1265, and was buried in the convent of Eussin, near 
Derby Haven (Rognvaldsvagr "), which one of his fore- 
fathers had founded, or at all events enlarged, in 1134, and 
w T hich already contained the bones of several Norwegian 
kings, chiefs, and ecclesiastics (as, for instance, of Bishop 

o 2 



292 THE NOBWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect X. 

Reginald, + 1225 ; King Olave Godredson, + 1237; and 
the chief Gospatrick, + 1240). With Magnus the 
family of Godred Crovan became extinct ; but the power- 
ful knight Ivar assumed the dominion of Man ; and it was 
not till the year ] 270 that the Scots, who had landed in 
Ragnvaldsvaag, succeeded, in a hard-fought battle, in kill- 
ing Ivar, together with a great number of the leading 
men of the island, who had fought desperately for their 
independence. 

Thus was terminated the actual Norwegian dominion 
over the Sudreyjar. As the battle of Largs con- 
siderably contributed to this event, it is no wonder that 
this battle, and above all King Hakon's expedition, still 
figure in Scottish traditions. On the battle-field near 
Largs — where human bones, as well as " Danish axes" and 
swords, are often found — are still to be seen two almost 
unique barrows or tumuli, the most remarkable in Scot- 
land, being about 25 feet high, and nearly 20 feet broad at 
the top, in which the Norwegians and Scots who had been 
slain are said to have been buried. One of the mounds, 
which stands just at the back of the town, and close to the 
shore, is probably the grave of the Norwegians ; for the 
Sagas, whose accounts agree on the whole so exactly with 
the localities that they must have been derived from eye- 
witnesses, relate that King Hakon, the day after the 
battle, buried his dead on the coast, in the neighbourhood 
of a church. The other mound stands on the plain, a few 
thousand paces farther off. According to the statements 
of the common people, on the day of the battle, blood 
flowed instead of water in a little rivulet or beck that runs 
past " Killing Craig." A number of smaller barrows and 
scattered stones, formerly to be seen on the plain, were 
likewise ascribed by tradition, though certainly without 
reason, to the same battle. They undoubtedly belonged 
to a far more ancient time ; as is also the case with an ex- 
cellent silver-gilt brooch found near Hunterston, about 
three miles from Largs, which was at once said to have 



Sect.X.] TRADITIONS ABOUT HAKON. 293 

been lost by some Norwegian who fled from the field of 
battle. There is a short Scandinavian runic inscription 
scratched on the back of it ; but, from what has hitherto 
been deciphered, it would rather seem to denote the name 
of a Scotchman than of a Norwegian. Professor Munch 
reads, and certainly with good reason, as follows : — 
" Malbritha a dalk thana" ... or, " Melbrigd owns this brooch." 
In workmanship, moreover, it resembles the contem- 
porary Irish and Scotch more than Scandinavian ornaments. 
The remembrance of this last expedition of the Nor- 
wegians is scarcely less vivid in several of the harbours 
which King Hakon visited with his fleet ; as, for instance, 
Lamlash (" Melasey"), in Arran ; Sanda (" Sandey ") near 
the south point of Cantire, where are shown the remains 
of a chapel and a churchyard, in which are said to repose 
the bones of many Danish and Norwegian chiefs ; also in 
Gigha (" Gudey ") ; Kerrera (" Kjarbarey "), with its 
"Danish" fort " Gylen ;" and lastly, in Kyle Rhee (the 
King's Strait), and Kyle Akin (Hakon's Strait ?), in the 
straits between the Isle of Skye and Lochalsh, on the coast 
of Ross-shire. According to a tradition, which is, however, 
entirely without foundation, King Hakon, in his flight 
from Largs, was attacked in this strait and killed, together 
with a great number of his followers. With similar ex- 
aggeration the Scots relate that all the Norwegians round 
about in the Sudreyjar were killed after the battle of 
Largs. On one of the islands near Barra was shown, 
not long since, and perhaps is even still, a heap of humau 
bones, as the remains of the last Danes murdered there. 
On Lewis there is the following tradition — that when the 
Danes were quartered round about in the island, and were 
very troublesome on account of their oppressions, the 
Gaels laid a plan to murder them. The " fiery cross" was 
circulated through the island, with this brief announce- 
ment : " marbhadh ghach then a Bhuana ;" that is, " every 
one shall kill his guest." The strangers, who had not time 
to assemble together, were thus murdered one by one. 



294 THE NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. X. 

It cannot admit of a doubt that the Norwegians on the 
Sudreyjar, who for centuries had taken fast root in the 
islands, and become mixed with the families of the Scotch 
chiefs, could not thus disappear all at once without leaving 
a trace behind them. In Lewis, as I have before proved, 
vestiges of a Norwegian population still exist. The best 
refutation of the tradition is, however, the circumstance 
that with the exception of Man, the Sudreyjar continued 
to be governed by the same chiefs who had ruled the 
islands under the Norwegian dominion; and who, being 
descended from Somerled himself, were in a great degree 
of Norwegian extraction. Somerled 's successors also con- 
tinued, after the old fashion, to defy the Scotch kings, 
who often sought in vain to subdue the bold " Lords of the 
Isles," so famed in song and legend. Sometimes they 
declared themselves independent, and sometimes they were 
compelled to yield to the superior force of the kings, and 
acknowledge them as their feudal lords ; until at length, 
but not before the sixteenth century, the power of these 
island chieftains was entirely subdued. Even to the 
present day many Highland clans assert that they are 
descended from the Danes, or Norwegians. This much is 
at all events certain, that several clans have Scandinavian 
blood in their veins, as appears clearly enough from the 
names of Clan-Ranald (from Reginald or Ragnvald) and 
Clan-Dugal (from Dubbgall, " the dark strangers, " the 
usual name for the Danes) ; both which clans, it is expressly 
stated, are descended from Somerled. To these may be 
added the clan of Macleod in Skye, whose chiefs still 
commonly bear the pure Norwegian names of " Torquil " 
and " Tormod." 

But the enduring influence of the Norwegian dominion 
in the Sudreyjar is best established by the fact that since 
the battle of Largs, the Isle of Man, through all the 
vicissitudes of fate, and after passing by sale into the 
possession of the English crown, has uninterruptedly 
retained its peculiar position as a kingdom, having its 



Sect. X.] THE NORWEGIANS IN MAN. 295 

own originally Norwegian or Scandinavian constitution, and 
its annual assemblies on the identical Thing-hill, Tynwald 
(or, as it was formerly called Tingualla, " pingavollr"), 
from which, about a thousand years ago, the Norwegians 
governed the Sudreyjar. Although the British Parliament 
makes laws for England, Ireland, and Scotland, they are 
of no validity in the Isle of Man, unless they are in ac- 
cordance with the ancient laws and liberties of the island, 
and, after being confirmed by its own Parliament, are pro- 
claimed from Tynwald Hill. 

The Manx Parliament, whose origin is lost in the mists 
of remote antiquity, but whose establishment is usually 
ascribed to the Danish king Orry (Erik ?), who settled in 
the island in the beginning of the tenth century, consists 
of the three "estates" of the island: 1st, the king, or 
superior lord ; 2nd, the governor and council ; 3rd, the 
twenty-four representatives of the island (" Keys, or 
Taxiaxi "). The upper house, or council, consists of the 
bishop, two superior judges (" deemsters "), and six other 
of the highest officers in the island. The representatives 
in " the house of Keys" fill up vacancies themselves, and 
hold their seats for life, without being in any way respon- 
sible to the people for their votes. 

This aristocratic mode of election reminds one of the 
time of the Norwegian conquest, when the Norwegians 
made themselves lords over the- natives. The Thing, or 
Tynwald Court, which can be assembled by the governor 
at any time whatever, possesses, according to old Scandi- 
navian custom, both the judicial and the legislative power. 
The house of Keys is the first, and the Council the second 
court of appeal for certain causes, after they have been 
tried by the inferior courts in the island. The Council can 
reject proposals for laws brought in by the house of Keys, 
and the king again can reject the united proposals of both 
houses. On the other hand, what all the three estates 
have agreed on becomes a law (" a Tynwald act "); but it is 
not in force until it has been proclaimed from Tynwald Hill. 



296 THE NOKWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND. [Sect. X. 

This hill, -which stands in the midst of a valley on the 
■west coast of the island, close to the northern side of the 
town of Peel, is said to have been originally raised -with 
earth taken from all the seventeen parishes in the island. 
It forms four terraces, or steps, the lowest of -which is 
eight feet broad, the next six feet, the third four feet, and 
the topmost six feet. There are three feet between every 
step, or terrace, and the circumference of the hill is about 
240 feet. It is covered -with green sward. (See Cumming. 
" The Isle of Man." London, 1848.) 

Once a year, on St. John the Baptist's Day, the governor 
of Man, attended by a military escort, sets out from Castle 
Town, and, together -with the Tynwald Court, attends divine 
service in St. John's Chapel, situated a few hundred paces 
from the hill. After the service, the whole court repairs 
in solemn procession to the hill, -whence all the laws that 
have been passed in the course of the year are proclaimed 
in English and Manx. The procession then returns to the 
chapel, -where the laws are signed and sealed. 

Amongst all the Scandinavian Thing-hills, or Thing- 
walls (" pingavellir ") that can be traced in the old Danish 
part of England, in the Norwegian part of Scotland, as 
-well as in the Orkneys and Shetland Islands, and which 
also formerly existed in Iceland, Norway, and throughout 
the North, Tynwald in Man is the only one still in use. 

It is, indeed, highly remarkable that the last remains of 
the old Scandinavian Tiling, which, for the protection of 
public liberty, was held in the open air, in the presence of 
the assembled people, and conducted by the people's chiefs 
and representatives, are to be met with not in the North 
itself, but in a little island far towards the west, and in the 
midst of the British kingdom. The history of the Manx 
Thing court remarkably illustrates that spirit of freedom 
and that political ability which animated the men who in 
ancient times emigrated from Norway and the rest of the 
Scandinavian North. 



THE 



NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. 



Section I. 

Nature and Population of Ireland. — The " Danish" Conquests. — 
Traditions about the " Danes." — Political Movements. 

Ireland may still be justly called the chief land of the 
ancient Celtic tribes. Long after the Britons and Cale- 
donians had been driven out by the Romans and Anglo- 
Saxons, and obliged to fly to the remotest mountain dis- 
tricts of the west, their Irish kinsmen retained firm pos- 
session of the whole large and fertile country of Ireland. 
Subsequently, it is true, the Irish also were compelled 
to give way before the conquests of the Norwegians and 
English; yet they continued to inhabit the greater part 
of the country in vastly superior numbers ; and even in 
the districts conquered by foreigners, which were mostly 
confined to the sea coasts, they dwelt intermingled with 
the new immigrants. In spite of the attempts of the 
English to subdue and annihilate the nationality of the 
Irish, they continued to preserve throughout the middle 
ages their ancient language and their characteristic man- 
ners and customs. With all their power the English have 
not even been able to root out the Roman Catholic reli- 
gion, which to the present day forms the predominant 
church of the Irish. It is only in later times that they 

o 3 



298 



THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. I. 



have succeeded in gaining a firmer footing in Ireland than 
they previously possessed. The English language and 
customs are continually making greater progress towards 
the west; and the Irish, who can no longer withstand 
England's power, seek in great numbers, like their kins- 
men in Scotland, a new asylum in America. The struggle 
is the more severe in proportion as the Irish are more nu- 
merous than the Celtic population in Scotland and Eng- 
land. The last violent throes of the once powerful and 
mighty Irish nationality now fearfully agitate Ireland, 
which has been so long and so severely tried by oppression, 
pestilence, and famine. 

One of the most active causes of the misfortunes of Ire- 
land and the Irish is, however, the same that occasioned 
the ruin of the Celts in England and Scotland ; namely, 
that they could never sincerely unite together. They have 
always abandoned themselves too much to eastern indolence 
and quiet, regardless of the march of civilization, and neg- 
lecting to avail themselves sufficiently of the rich resources 
afforded by their native land. For, although it is true that 
there are considerable tracts of boggy land in Ireland, 
and that many districts are but little capable of cultiva- 
tion, yet in the main Ireland is exceedingly well adapted 
for agriculture. The neighbourhood of the Atlantic pro- 
duces mild breezes, which permit neither frost nor snow 
to be of long duration, and consequently promote a rare 
and luxuriant vegetation. In few countries do we behold 
so many creeping plants, and such beautiful and verdant 
fields and pastures, as in Ireland, which, from its green 
meadows, has obtained the appropriate name of " the 
Emerald Isle." The land is intersected by rivers partially 
navigable, abounding in fish, and its coasts are washed 
by a sea — which not only from its rich fisheries, but from 
the facilities which it affords to navigation, particularly 
towards America — might, if properly used, become an inex- 
haustible source of wealth. 

From time immemorial Ireland was celebrated in the 



Sect. I] SCANDINAVIAN SETTLEMENTS IN 1KELAND. 299 

Scandinavian North for its charming situation, its mild 
climate, and its fertility and beauty. The " Kongespeil " 
(or " Mirror of Kings "), which was compiled in Norway 
about the year 1200, says that " Ireland is almost the 
best of the lands we are acquainted with, although no 
vines grow there." The Scandinavian Vikings and emi- 
grants, who often contented themselves with such poor 
countries as Greenland and the islands in the North At- 
lantic Ocean, must therefore have especially turned their 
attention to " the Emerald Isle," particularly as it bor- 
dered very closely upon their colonies in England and 
Scotland. 

But to make conquests in Ireland, and to acquire by 
the sword alone permanent settlements there, were no 
easy tasks. The remote situation of Ireland, so far to- 
wards the west in the Atlantic Ocean, was of itself no 
slight defence. With the exception of certain tracts, prin- 
cipally on tbe east coast, the land is full of mountains, 
which everywhere afford secure retreats from an invading 
enemy. In our days Ireland, the second of the British 
Isles in point of magnitude, has a population of between 
six and seven millions, chiefly of ancient Irish, or Celtic 
origin; and in ancient times, when the Celts were en- 
tirely independent, and absolute masters of the country, 
the population does not appear to have been much less 
numerous. Ireland, moreover, distinguished itself by 
adopting Christianity, together with its accompanying civi- 
lization, at a very early period, which, however, was not 
able to put an end to the cruel and sanguinary disputes 
that raged between the different tribes composing its 
population. Thus the proportionately few and scattered 
Norwegians, who could reach Ir land only by sea, and 
who could derive assistance only from their countrymen 
settled upon the coasts of England and Scotland, had to 
contend with a numerous, and by no means unwarlike 
people, inhabiting an extensive and mountainous country. 
To obtain assistance in the hour of need from their own 



300 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. I. 

Scandinavian home was, on account of the great distance, 
a physical impossibility. When, therefore, we consider 
that neither the Komans nor the Anglo-Saxons ever ob- 
tained a footing in Ireland, although they had conquered 
the adjacent country, England ; and when we further re- 
flect upon the immense power exerted by the English in 
later times in order to subdue the Celtic population of 
Ireland, and the many centuries which elapsed before they 
even partially succeeded, we cannot help being surprised 
at the very considerable Scandinavian settlements which, as 
early as the ninth century, were formed in Ireland, and at 
the great influence which the Norwegians, according to the 
concurring evidence of the Irish and Scandinavian chro- 
nicles, must for more than three centuries have exercised 
in all the most important places in the country. 

On his first entrance into Ireland, a Scandinavian tra- 
veller will be immediately reminded of the ancient domi- 
nion of his countrymen. It cannot possibly escape his ob- 
servation what a striking part the Norwegians — or, as they 
are there exclusively called, the " Danes " — play in the 
popular legends and traditions of Ireland. That, like the 
north-western districts of Scotland, it should have best pre- 
served the popular life of ancient times with its songs and 
legends, must, it is true, be ascribed to its remote situation. 
Everywhere, even far in the interior of the country, we are 
shown Danish raths (mounds and entrenchments), and 
among others the so-called " Danes-cast," a long ditch and 
rampart in Ulster. " Danish cooking-places " are also 
pointed out, consisting of small circular spaces set round 
with stones, and bearing traces of embers and burnings, 
some of which are met with scattered about on heaths and 
moors. In the ancient copper mines in the south of Ire- 
land roundish stones with a dent round the middle are now 
and then dug up, which it is evident were used in former 
times in working the mines. These stones are called by 
the common people " Danes' hammers." In like manner 
they generally call most of the antiquities that are dug up, 



Sect. I.] TRADITIONS ABOUT "THE DANES." 301 

whether weapons or ornaments, " Danish." Tales calcu- 
lated to awaken horror of outrages of the Danes are con- 
nected with all these pretended Danish memorials ; and 
the farther we travel into the remote western districts, the 
more terrible are the tales we hear of the distress and 
cruel oppressions which the inhabitants endured under their 
Danish conquerors. Nevertheless the Irishman has pre- 
served, like the Englishman, the remembrance of the 
Danes' contempt of death, and irresistible bravery. " That 
might even frighten a Dane," says the Irishman at times, 
when speaking of some desperate undertaking. A kind of 
superstitious fear of the redoubted Danes seems in some 
places to have seized the common people ; at least it is an 
acknowledged fact, that in several parts of the country they 
continue to frighten children with " the Danes." 

Similar ideas about the Danes are to be met with even 
among the more enlightened portion of the people. Not 
long ago, it was a firm belief among many educated men 
in Ireland, that there were still families in Denmark, who 
could not forget the dominion they had formerly exercised 
in Ireland, and who bore a title derived from the large 
estates which their forefathers had once conquered and 
possessed there. It was likewise commonly supposed 
that the Danes had carried with them from Ireland a 
great number of manuscripts, which were said to be pre- 
served in one of the large collections of books in Copenha- 
gen ; as if, forsooth, it had been one of the chief aims of 
the bold and dangerous expeditions of the ancient Norwe- 
gians at that remote period, to carry off scientific treasures, 
and above all, manuscripts written in Irish, and, conse- 
quently, in" a language that was for the most part entirely 
incomprehensible to them. In the last century in particu- 
lar, and at the beginning of the present one, the Irish 
literati attributed to the Danes, or rather to the Norwegians, 
much to which, strictly speaking, they could have no valid 
claim. 

The remarkable round towers,whose stone walls are built 



302 THE NOEWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. I. 

in so workmanlike a manner, and which are so evidently of 
Christian origin — being erected both as belfries, and as 
places of security for the clergy, and certainly against the 
Scandinavian Vikings and conquerors — were nevertheless 
proclaimed to be " Danish towers." The large stone 
rooms, or sepulchral chambers in cairns, that are found in 
several places in Ireland, as at New Grange, and which 
have so striking an agreement with the sepulchral cham- 
bers in the Scandinavian North and other countries, dating 
from the pre-historical, and so-called stone age, were also 
called "Danish;" although we know from the Sagas, as well 
as from the Irish chronicles, that the "Danes," or rather 
the Norwegian Vikings, sometimes opened these sepul- 
chres, in order to take out any treasure that might have 
been buried in them by the natives. In several other 
instances, the Irish were not disinclined at times to regard 
the Norwegian conquests in a somewhat too favourable 
light. 

Recently, however, they have gone to the opposite 
extreme. Everything possible that is bad, but nothing 
whatever that is good, is ascribed to the Scandinavian con- 
querors. In Ireland, as in Scotland and England, it is at pre- 
sent the commonly received opinion that the Norwegian con- 
querors did nothing but plunder and burn, and thusannihi- 
lated a very considerable civilization, which had prevailed in 
Ireland for centuries before the Norwegian expeditions. 
The " Danes" are, besides, accused of subverting the inde- 
pendence of Ireland, and of being the sole cause of her 
subsequently coming under the dominion of England. 
It is remarkable enough, however, that the Irish appear 
entirely to forget that the fault must be ascribed to them- 
selves. They were so divided, and at such variance with 
one another, that, in spite of their vast numbers and boasted 
civilization, they could not unite to resist a mere handful 
of Scandinavians, who came from a great distance across 
the sea, and still less could they resist their powerful 
English conquerors. 



Sect, i.] o'connell's misrepresentations. 303 

This change in the opinions commonly received in Ire- 
land concerning the Danish conquests has been effected 
more particularly by the late political movements. It is but 
little known in the Scandinavian North that, since the Repeal 
agitation in Ireland, the Danish conquests and the Danish 
name have been used as a constant and effective means of 
agitating against England ; yet such is actually the case. 

When O'Connell stepped forward as the mouth-piece of 
Irish nationality, to revive the ancient independence of 
Ireland, and if possible to restore its Parliament, by means 
of a repeal of the Union, it was of course important for him 
to awaken in his countrymen a feeling of freedom. With 
this design, he looked to Ireland's earlier history, and par- 
ticularly to the period when she formed an independent 
kingdom. But that time was extremely remote. As 
early as the close of the twelfth century the English 
had firmly established themselves in Ireland ; and the 
Danes before them had, for several centuries, held 
dominion over the most important places in that country. 
Had O'Connell, therefore, wished to dwell on the time 
of Ireland's real independence, he must have reverted 
to a period more than a thousand years ago. But he 
shrewdly foresaw that the vast and uneducated mass of 
the people, whom he chiefly wished to agitate, would not 
be able to follow him. He therefore chose historical events 
that lay nearer, and of which the remembrance still lived 
among the people ; and, as his chief aim was to irritate the 
Irish against the " Saxons" (or English) he laid great stress 
upon the glory which the Irish had acquired in former 
combats against that people, as well as against the " Danes," 
who had preceded them in conquering Ireland. 

Nothing could have been better adapted to O'Connell 's 
object than the traditions and exaggerated notions about 
the Danes, still so widely diffused among the poorer classes 
in Ireland. O'Connell knew how to flatter with dexterity 
the vanity and self-love of the Irish, by representing how 
great a triumph they had achieved in former times, by 



304 THE NOKWEGIANS IN IKELAND. [Sect. I. 

driving out the Danes, and annihilating a dominion founded 
with so much bravery and wisdom. If he drew no direct 
conclusion from this, he let it, however, be sufficiently seen, 
that as the Irish were formerly able to expel their Danish 
conquerors, there was nothing to prevent them from chasing 
the hated "Saxons" from their coasts. At one of his 
great meetings, held on Tara Hill, where the ancient Irish 
kings were crowned in the time of Ireland's independence, 
he reminded his countrymen that their forefathers had, in 
the year 978, gained on that spot a considerable victory 
over the "Danes." 

On the coast about three miles to the north-east of 
Dublin, is the plain of Clontarf, where, in the year 1014, a 
great battle was fought between the "Danes " and the Irish. 
This battle, one of the most sanguinary in all the wars of 
the Norwegians and Irish, was gained by the latter, whose 
king Brian Boroimha (or Brian Boru) fell just as victory 
declared for his army. A victory over the Danes like this 
must naturally always occupy a prominent place in the 
historical reminiscences of the Irish; and their historians 
throughout the middle ages, and down to our own times, 
have accordingly dwelt with extreme complacency on the 
description of the bravery of the Irish and of their king. 
But it did not suffice O'Connell and his followers to adhere 
to historical realities. They followed the chroniclers of a 
later period, by whom the victory of Clontarf has been de- 
lineated in far too brilliant colours. In songs, pamphlets, 
and speeches, the battle of Clontarf was now represented 
as having completely annihilated the Danish power in Ire- 
land, and saved her independence and freedom. Accord- 
ing to these accounts, not a single Dane or Norwegian 
would seem to have remained in Ireland after the battle. 
Brian Boroimha (Boru) was extolled to the skies, as a 
martyr for the deliverance of his country from the yoke 
of the oppressors. And in the intoxication of enthusiasm 
thus produced, his portrait, together with a picture of the 
battle of Clontarf, was distributed among the people in 



Sect. I.] BATTLE OF CLONTAKF. 305 

immense quantities, and at the very lowest price. On the 
tickets of members of the Eepeal Association, which were 
ornamented with the names of the most important national 
triumphs of the Irish, as well as with portraits of the vic- 
tors, the battle of Clontarf, and Brian Boru's portrait, 
stood at the top. 

When at length this representation of the battle of 
Clontarf, as one of the most important fought by Ireland 
for liberty, had been so impressed upon the common people 
that it seemed an event which had only recently taken 
place — and which, at least in the lively imaginations of the 
Irish, might possibly enough be repeated — O'Connell gave 
out that he would hold a great repeal meeting on the plain 
of Clontarf. Everybody knew beforehand that the real 
meaning of O'Connell's speech was, that just as the Irish, 
with Brian Boroimha at their head, had formerly defeated 
the Danes on that very place, and thus saved Ireland's 
freedom, so should they now in like manner follow O'Con- 
nell (who, besides, gave himself out for a descendant of 
Brian Boru [?]), and make every sacrifice to wrest back their 
lost independence from English, or " Saxon," ascendancy. 
The English government, however, forbade the meeting, 
and indicted O'Connell. But the same extravagant notions 
respecting the national importance of the battle of Clontarf 
naturally continued to be generally received ; and that not 
only amongst the adherents of O'Connell, or " Old Ire- 
landers," as they are called, but also among the members 
of a political party, the " Young Irelanders," which has 
arisen since, and whose aim it is to sever the connection 
with England by open force. In the seditious songs of 
both these parties the Danes and the English generally 
share the same fate, as the war-cry, " The Saxon and the 
Dane," constantly forms the burthen of the songs. It is 
but very rarely that an Irish repealer (for instance, Mr. 
Holmes) dares venture to express an opinion that it would 
probably have been no detriment to Ireland if the " Danes " 
had remained settled there. This, when explained, means 



306 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. II. 

that the Danes would never have been so dangerous to the 
independence of Ireland as the English have since become ; 
and that the Irish, united with and assisted by the Danes, 
would certainly have had a fleet capable of resisting any 
attacks of their powerful English neighbours (?). 



Section II. 

Irish and Scandinavian Records. — Finn Lochlannoch. — Dubh- 
Lochlannoch. — The Names of the Provinces. 

One of the many complaints made by the Irish against the 
Danes, and particularly of late, is, that by destroying Irish 
civilization they likewise choked the vigorous germs of a 
national literature, which, in consequence of the early 
introduction of Christianity, had began at a very early 
period to take root among the Irish people. The existence 
of a literature, particularly like the ancient Irish, in the 
vernacular language of the country, must of course always 
afford a strong proof of a certain degree of education 
among the people. During the late political agitation in 
Ireland, the old Irish literature, of which various remains 
are still preserved, was therefore extravagantly extolled, 
with the view of proving how glorious and enlightened 
was the age of Ireland's long-vanished independence. 

Whatever opinion may be formed of the remaining 
relics of this ancient literature, which are mostly limited 
to chronicles in the form of annals, and a few old songs, 
it is at all events agreed that they are of very peculiar 
importance as regards a knowledge of the Norwegian and 
Danish expeditions. It is true that the Scandinavian 
Sagas and chronicles contain many accounts of the achieve- 
ments of the Norwegians in Ireland, both in war and 
peace; but the Irish records of them are still more 
copious. The oldest Irish chronicles relate almost as 
much to the battles of the Norwegians and Danes with the 



Sect. II.] IRISH CHRONICLES. 307 

Irish, as to the internal state of Ireland. A singular 
chronicle in Irish, of the close of the eleventh century, 
about " the Wars of the Irish and the Northmen," was dis- 
covered a few years ago. It contains not only a complete 
account of every battle between the Irish and Northmen, 
down to that of Clontarf, but also various information 
respecting the settlements of the Norwegians in Ireland, 
their mode of warfare, weapons, &c. That this chronicle 
must have been composed not long after the battle of 
Clontarf, is proved by the fact that it is referred to as an 
old record in another Irish work, called " The Book of 
Leinster," written in the first half of the twelfth century. 
The above-named ancient chronicle — the publication of 
which, by that distinguished Irish scholar, Dr. Todd, cannot 
be far distant — will, in conjunction with the rest of the 
Irish accounts relative to the Norwegian expeditions into 
Ireland, afford an excellent opportunity for comparison 
with the narratives of our Scandinavian Sagas. Mean- 
while we have already sufficient information at hand to 
compare the accounts of the conquerors and the conquered — 
a method by which the historical truth will evidently come 
forth more clearly than if we were obliged to adopt exclu- 
sively the one-sided statements of either party. 

The Irish accounts are, however, far from being always 
perfectly trustworthy. They not only reflect the customary 
hatred and prejudices of the Christians against the heathen 
Northmen, but frequently bear the stamp of being derived 
from early poetical legends. They relate how several 
Irish saints, as St. Columkill, St. Berchan, St. Kieran, and 
St. Comgall, had long before predicted the coming of the 
Scandinavian heathens and their barbarous proceedings. 
They likewise depict how terribly the heathens devastated 
and plundered unhappy Ireland. People were everywhere 
killed or maltreated; churches and convents were plun- 
dered, burnt, and desecrated. Thus the heathen chief 
Turges' (Thorgils') wife, Odo, sat on the altar of the con- 
ventual church in Clonmacnois, and on it, as on a throne 



308 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. II. 

received the homage of the assembled people. At the 
same time the Danes everywhere endeavoured to settle 
themselves in the country. They launched ships even on 
the lakes, with which they coerced the people dwelling 
around their shores. In the tenth century (continues the 
Irish scholar Duald Mac Firbis, in his unpublished trea- 
tise respecting " The Fomorians and Lochlanns," written 
about a.d. 1650) " Erinn was filled with ships (or adven- 
turers), viz., the ships of Birn, the ships of Odvin, the 
ships of Grifin (or Grisin), the ships of Suatgar, the 
ships of Lagmann, the ships of Earbalbh, the ships of 
Sitric (?), the ships of Buidin, the ships of Bernin, the 
ships of the Crioslachs, the ships of Torberd Roe, the 
ships of Snimin, the ships of Suainin, the ships of 
Barun, the ships of Mileadh Lua, the ships of the In- 
ghean Roe (Red Maiden). All the evils which befel 
Erinn until then were as nothing; for the Galls spread 
themselves over all Erinn, and they built Cahirs (Caers) 
and Cashels (or Castles), and they showed respect to no 
one ; and they used to kill her (Erinn's) kings, and carry 
her queens and noble ladies over the sea into bondage. 

" A fleet the like of which was never seen, came with 
Jomar More, grandson of Jomar, and his three sons, viz., 
Dubhgall, Cualladh, and Aralt; and they took Inis Sibtonn 
in the harbour of Limerick, and forced submission from 
the Galls who had come before. 

" The Galls then ordered a king on every territory, a 
chief on every chieftaincy, an abbot in every church, a 
bailiff in every town, a soldier in every house, so that not 
one of the men of Erinn had power over anything of his 
own from even the hen's clutch to the hundred milch cows. 
And they dared not show their kindness nor generosity to 
father, mother, bishop, ollave, spiritual director, those in 
sickness nor disease, nor to the infant one night old. If 
there was but one cow in the possession of any one of the 
men of Erinn, her broth should be given to the soldier the 
night that no milk could be procured from her. And an 



Sect. II.] ACCOUNTS OF THE SAGAS. 309 

hinge of gold, or silver, of Fionndruine (a carved orna- 
ment of white metal) for the king's rent every year, and 
the person who would not be able to pay that should go 
himself into bondage, or have his nose cut off." 

As the Irish chronicles give in this manner embellished 
and exaggerated pictures of the victories and power of the 
Norwegians in Ireland, so also they frequently depict the 
defeats of the " Danes " in colours that are too vivid. The 
ancient chronicle before mentioned concerning " The Wars 
of the Irish and the Northmen " states, for instance, that 
some time before the battle of Clontarf a desperate conflict 
took place at Glennmama, in the neighbourhood of Dublin, 
between the Irish king, Brian Boroimha, and the Danes 
in Dublin; with which latter were united the inhabit- 
ants of Leinster, who had shortly before entered " the 
Danish precinct of Dublin." King Brian was victorious 
in the battle ; " and then there was not a threshing-spot 
from Howth to Brandon in Kerry without an ensclaved 
Dane threshing on it, nor a quern without a Danish woman 
grinding on it." 

Very different are the accounts given by the Scandina- 
vian Sagas relative to the Norwegians in Ireland. It was 
to be expected that the Irishman, endowed with a southern 
vivacity, and at the same time thrown into deep anxiety 
by the Norwegian expeditions, should have regarded them 
in quite a different light from the tranquil Norwegian 
himself, who in the conquests in Ireland beheld only a 
repetition of what was occurring at the same time in so 
many other countries. The Scandinavian accounts are in 
general shorter than the Irish, and confine themselves 
merely to the relation of single events. Ireland is usually 
treated of incidentally, nay almost accidentally. Accord- 
ing to the Sagas, we should almost be inclined to think 
that the dominion of the Norwegians in Ireland was much 
less in extent and duration than was actually the case, so 
little have the writers of them thought of magnifying 
their countrymen's renown at the expense of historical 



310 THE NOKWEGIANS IN IEELAND. [Sect. II. 

truth. What, therefore, the Sagas, and the rest of the 
Scandinavian chronicles relate about Ireland is, for the 
most part, very trustworthy, and at all events agrees with 
the representations at that time current amongst the Irish 
themselves. It is quite evident that the writers of the 
Sagas had either been in Ireland, or at all events derived 
their knowledge from men who knew the country well, 
either through Viking expeditions or trading voyages. 
The accuracy with which different places in Ireland are 
described affords a very remarkable proof of this. Thus 
the ancient seat of royalty " Teamor," or Tara, which is 
also celebrated for its delightful situation, is mentioned in 
the " Kongespeil " under the name of " Themar; " and it 
is added that " the people knew no finer city on the earth." 
In the same place it is further stated that the town and 
castle sunk suddenly into the earth, because a king pro- 
nounced an unjust judgment — a tradition common in 
Ireland to the present day. 

Places in Ireland mentioned in the Sagas, but which 
formerly could not be traced, have recently been pointed 
out by the aid of the Irish records. The " Kongespeil " 
states, for instance, that Saint Diermitius had a church on 
a small island, " Misdredan" or " Inisdredan," in the lake 
" Logherne." This island is evidently " Inisdreckan " in 
Lough Erne, where formerly St. Diermitius actually had a 
church. Subsequent transcribers of the book have clearly 
enough transformed Inisdreckan into Inisdredan, Misdre- 
dan, &c. The same has been the case with the celebrated 
King Brian Boroimha's castle, which, by a mistake in copy- 
ing, is called in the Sagas " Kanntaraborg " or " Kunjatta- 
borg," instead of " Kanncaraborg." Brian Boroimha's 
castle, so celebrated in the Irish songs and legends, was 
called in Irish " Ceann-Caraidh " (pronounced Cancara), 
and was situated on the river Shannon, not far from 
Limerick. To the Irish Cancara the Norwegians, there- 
fore, only added the Scandinavian termination " borg." 
Again, it is stated in the Sagas that one could sail from 



Sect. II.] CORROBORATIONS OF THE SAGAS. 311 

Reykjanaes in Iceland to " Jollduhlaup " in Ireland, in 
about eight days, or, according to some readings, even in a 
much shorter time. Formerly this place was sought on 
Lough Swilley, near Cape Malin, in the north of Ireland. 
But Jollduhlaup, which signifies " the course or breaking 
of the waves," is merely a translation into Icelandic of the 
Gaelic name " Corrybracan " (Coire Breacain), whereby the 
Gaels denote a whirlpool between the little island of Rathlin 
(or Raghrin) and the north-easternmost part of Ireland (the 
county of Antrim). That the ancient Icelanders designated 
this precise spot in Ireland is owing in all probability to 
the circumstance that the island of Ratlin was in the olden 
times the chief station in the passage from Ireland to 
Scotland, and as such the rendezvous for a number of 
merchants and other travellers. Lastly, Snorre Sturleson 
relates that in the beginning of the eleventh century a 
desperate naval battle was fought between the Orkney jarl 
Einar and the Irish king " Konofogr," in Ulfrek's, or Ulf- 
kel's, Fiord, on the coast of Ireland. The situation of this 
fiord, or firth, was entirely unknown until it was lately 
discovered that in a document issued by the English-Irish 
king John in the year 1210, the Firth Lough Larne, on 
the east coast of Ireland, about fourteen miles north of 
Belfast, was at that time still called " WulvricheforS," 
which agrees most accurately with the Icelandic name 
" Ulfreksfjor^r." By a remarkable coincidence, a skeleton 
was dug up a little while previously just on the shores of 
Lough Larne, together with a pretty large iron sword, 
having a short guard and a large triangular pommel at 
the end of the hilt ; the form of which sword (as I shall 
prove) was not Irish, but pure Scandinavian, like that of 
the swords used towards the close of heathenism in the 
North. There is every probability that the skeleton and 
sword belong to one of the Scandinavian warriors who fell 
in the above-mentioned battle, and who was afterwards 
buried on the shore. Thus both the exhumed antiquities, 



312 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. II. 

and the lost but re-discovered name of the place, contribute 
to corroborate the credibility of Snorre.Sturleson's account. 

Both the Irish and the Scandinavian records agree that 
Norwegians and Danes were settled in Ireland at a 
very early period. The Vikings are said to have ravaged 
its coasts for the first time in the year 795 ; and in the 
ninth century many of them were already settled in the 
country. Amongst the men who, at the close of the ninth 
and beginning of the tenth century, first colonized Iceland, 
several Irishmen, or rather descendants of Norwegians 
settled in Ireland, are mentioned ; as, for instance, Thor- 
mod and Ketil Bufa, Haskel Hnokkan, who was descended 
from the Irish king Kjarval, besides others. Intermar- 
riages between the Norwegians in Ireland and the native 
Irish seem to have taken place from the very first ; which 
explains the circumstance that many men in Iceland bore 
at an early period Irish names, such as Kjaran and Niel 
or Njall. 

The Norwegians in Ireland, like their Danish kinsmen 
in England, were obliged to begin by settling on the 
coasts ; whence, both by warlike and peaceful means, they 
gradually extended their dominion over the country. 
Besides this continually-increasing and more peaceful 
colonization, roving Scandinavian Vikings continued their 
attacks in different parts of Ireland, whereby the power of 
the Irish was considerably weakened. A pause took place, 
however, in the tenth century, both in the expeditions of 
the Vikings, and in the progress of the Scandinavian set- 
tlements in Ireland. It is even stated that for about forty 
years " the strangers " (the Galls) were entirely driven out 
of the country; but this is probably an exaggeration. This 
diminution of the power of the Norwegians in Ireland 
occurred about the same time with the decrease of the 
Danish power in England, and appears to have been pro- 
duced by the same causes ; namely, internal commotions in 
the mother-country of Scandinavia, which prevented the 



Sect. II.J DUBHGALLS AND FINNGALLS. 313 

sending of such ample assistance as previously to the 
colonists in the British Islands. 

Subsequently, however, the Norwegian dominion in Ire- 
land became doubly powerful ; and the Irish were so far 
from being able to expel the strangers, that, notwithstand- 
ing the numerical inferiority of the latter, they were often 
masters in the country. It was evidently Norwegians 
rather than Danes who settled in Ireland, although not a 
few of the latter were mixed with them. In later times 
all the Northmen in Ireland are included under the 
common name of " Danes." But the best and oldest Irish 
chronicles distinguish, as it has been previously remarked, 
between the light-haired " Finn-Lochlannoch," or " Fionn 
Lochlannaigh " (the Norwegians), and the dark-haired 
" Dubh-Lochlannoch," or " Dubh- Lochlannaigh " (the 
Danes); or, what is the same, between Dubgall (" Dubh- 
Ghoill") and Finngall ("Fionn Ghoill"). The above- 
mentioned chronicle of " the Wars of the Irish and the 
Northmen," which draws a clear distinction between the 
Norwegians and Danes, expressly says that the Danes 
were only one of those tribes that made expeditions of 
conquest to Ireland. We even learn from the Irish chro- 
nicles that the Norwegians and Danes often fought between 
themselves for the dominion in Ireland. For instance, it 
is stated in the Irish annals in the year 845 : " the Dubh- 
galls (the Danes) came this year to Dublin, sabred the 
Finngalls (the Norwegians), destroyed their fortresses, and 
carried away many prisoners and much booty with them." 
Similar intestine disputes are mentioned in other places of 
the annals ; yet, as might be expected, the Danes appear 
still more frequently as fighting in alliance with the Nor- 
wegians. On the flat shores in the middle of the eastern 
coast of Ireland, between Dublin and Drogheda, which 
are called Finngall, or "the strangers' land " (from "finne," 
a land, and " gall," a stranger), and which in ancient times 
were colonized chiefly by Norwegians, is a small town 
called Baldoyle. In old documents this town is named 



314 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. II. 

" Balidubgail," the Dubhgalls' or Danes' town (" bal," a 
town). We have thus an existing proof that the Danes 
also were once actually settled in Ireland. The Dubhgalls 
are likewise said to have settled in the districts nearest to 
the south and west of Dublin. 

For the rest, among the names of places in Ireland 
which remind us of the Norwegian dominion, we must in 
particular specify the names of three of Ireland's four 
provinces, viz., Ulster (in Irish "Uladh"), Leinster (Irish, 
" Laighin "), and Munster (Irish, "Mumha," or "Mum- 
hain ") ; in all of which is added to the original Irish 
forms the Scandinavian or Norwegian ending sta^r, ster. 
It might even be a question whether the name " Ireland " 
did not originally derive this form from the Northmen. 
On this head we have, at all events, a choice only between 
the Northmen and the Anglo-Saxons, for to the present 
day the Irish themselves still call the country Eirinn or 
Eiri. The termination land is entirely unknown in their 
language. 

That the Northmen, and especially the Norwegians, 
should have been able to give to the three most important 
provinces of Ireland the names which they still bear, suf- 
ficiently indicates that they must have been settled there 
in no inconsiderable numbers, or that they must at all 
events long have ruled these districts, which is also con- 
firmed by the statements of the Irish chronicles. But in 
general we shall seek in vain among the names of places in 
Ireland for traces of such an extensive Scandinavian coloniza 
tion as existed in the North of England. All circumstances 
clearly show that the Northmen in Ireland were propor- 
tionately less settled in the rural districts than in the 
towns. In consequence of the remote situation of Ireland, 
its extent, and the magnitude of its population, they were 
exposed in the rural districts, when at some distance from 
the coast, to much more danger than in the towns, where 
they could better assemble their forces behind ramparts 
and ditches. It is a very striking circumstance that the 



Sect. III.] NATUKE OF THE NORWEGIAN DOMINION. 3J5 

chief strength of the Norwegians lay precisely in those 
towns which have since continued to be the greatest and 
most important in Ireland. The Norwegian dominion in 
Ireland had quite a peculiar character, having been divided 
into several small and scattered kingdoms, each comprised 
in a town, or even only part of a town, with at most an 
inconsiderable adjacent tract of land. That such kingdoms 
should subsist for several centuries, and even long after 
the Danish dominion had ceased in England, is certainly 
one of the most remarkable, and, with regard to the civiliza- 
tion of the Northmen, most pregnant facts in the history 
of the Scandinavian emigrants. 



Section III. 



Norwegian Kings. — Limerick.— Cork. — Waterford. — Reginald's Tower. 
— Dublin. — Thengmotha. — Oxmantown. 

According to trustworthy historical evidence, the Nor- 
wegians and the Danes, or the Ost-men, as they were 
called in Ireland (from having come originally from the 
east), principally fixed their abodes in Dublin, Water- 
ford, and Limerick, where, as early as the ninth century, 
they had founded peculiar Scandinavian kingdoms. They 
were also settled in considerable numbers in Wexford, 
Cork, and several Irish cities, so that they had possessed 
themselves, by degrees, of the best-situated places in the 
east, south, and west of Ireland, both for navigation and 
for intercourse with the rich countries of the interior. 

The central point, however, of the real Norwegian 
power was the present capital, Dublin. This considerable 
city, which is said to contain at present more than three 
hundred thousand inhabitants, lies on both sides of the 
river Liffey, near the spot where it discharges itself into the 
Irish Channel. It is surrounded by a charming and fertile 
country. Anciently, however, and especially before the 

p 2 



316 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. III. 

arrival of the Norwegians in Ireland, it seems to have 
been comparatively insignificant, both as regards extent 
and population. Yet even at that time it was, probably 
by means of its fortunate situation, and its connections 
with the neighbouring countries, the most important place 
in Ireland, which, at that early period, did not possess 
any very large towns. But as Dublin and its vicinity was 
at all events one of the most attractive points on the east 
coast of Ireland, some of the first Scandinavian kingdoms 
were founded there. About the middle of the ninth cen- 
tury a celebrated Norwegian Viking, Olaf the White, is 
said to have taken Dublin, and made himself king of the 
city and district. After the death of Olaf in a battle, two 
sons of King Harald Haarfager (Fair-hair), of Norway, 
arrived there, namely, Thorgils, called by the Irish Turges, 
and Frode ; who, by means of the sword, likewise won for 
themselves thrones in Dublin. Subsequently to them, 
again, as the Irish chronicles relate, there landed three 
brothers, Olaf, Sigtryg, and Ivar, who became kings in 
Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. From that time Nor- 
wegian kings reigned in those places, with but few inter- 
ruptions, for full three centuries. 

There would certainly be some cause to doubt of so ex- 
tensive a Norwegian dominion in a country so remote as 
Ireland, as well as of the actual existence of so striking a 
number of Scandinavian, and especially Norwegian, kings 
of cities, if the names of a great number of them were 
not preserved ; and that, too, not so much in the chronicles 
of the Norwegians themselves, as in those of the con- 
quered Irish, who had no reason to exaggerate in this 
respect. Several of the Norwegian kings mentioned in 
the Irish chronicles are, besides, mentioned in contem- 
porary Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian records ; whence it 
becomes doubly probable that the remainder of the Nor- 
wegian kings mentioned by the Irish actually reigned in 
the places indicated. 

As the Irish chronicles thus not only give the most 



Sect. III.] 



SCANDINAVIAN KINGS IN IRELAND. 



317 



detailed accounts respecting the Norwegian kings in Ire- 
land, but also the least partial ones in favour of the Nor- 
wegians, I have annexed a list of kings compiled by an 
Irish author from Irish records. We may see from this, 
although it is scarcely complete, that the Scandinavian 
names of the kings (such as Olaf, Ivar, Eistein, Sigtryg, 
Godfred or Gudrod (?), Ragnvald, Torfin, Ottar, Broder, 
Eskil, Rorik, Harald, and Magnus) appear in general 
clear and distinct through the somewhat altered Irish 
forms, whilst a few names, such as Gluniarand (which in 
Irish signifies Iron- Knee), Eachmargach, Maelnambo, and 
Gilalve, seem to be mere Irish translations, or at all events 
purely Irish transformations, of Scandinavian forms. 



Norwegian, or Scandinavian, Kings in Ireland. 

{From Lindsay, " The Coinage of Ireland" Cork, 1839.) 

A. — Kings of Dublin. 



Anlaf (Olaf), 853. 

Ifar (Ivar), 870. 

Ostinus (Eistein), 872. 

Godfred (Gudrod), 875. 

Sihtric (Sigtryg), 893. 

Sihtric, 896. 

Regnald (Ragnvald), 919. 

Godfred, 920. 

Anlaf, 934. 

Blacar (Blake), 941. 

Godfred, 948. 

Anlaf, 954. 

Godfred, 960. 

Anlaf, 962. 

Regnald. 

Gluniarand, 981. 

Sihtric (deposed), 989. 

Ifar, 993. 

B. — Kings of Waterford. 

Sihtric, 853. Sihtric, 1020. 

Ifar, 983. Regnald, 1023. 

Regnald, 1000. Commuanus, 1036. 



Sihtric (again), 994. 

Anlaf, 1029. 

Sihtric, 1034. 

Anlaf, 1031. 

Ifar, 1050. 

Eachmargach, 1054. 

Maelnambo, 1064. 

Godred Crovan, 1066 (?). 

Godfred Merenach, 1076. 

Gilalve, 1094. 

Torfin, 1109. 

Regnald, 1125. 

Godfred, 1147. 

Oicterus (Ottar), 1147. 

Broder, 1149. 

Askel, 1159. 

Roderick, 1171 till about 1200. 



Ifar, 853, King of Dublin 

in the year 870. 
Ifar, 940. 



C. — Kings of Limerick. 

Olfin, 942. 
Harold O'Ifar. 
Magnus, 968. 



318 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. III. 

More detailed accounts are wanting relative to the 
kings of Limerick and Waterford during the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries; though it is. certain enough that they 
continued to reign there just as long as in Dublin. Nor 
can we at present discover many apparent or recognisable 
traces of the dominion of the Ostmen and their kings in 
the two places just mentioned. Still Waterford appears 
to have derived its present name from the Norwegians- 
The Irish called the town " Port Lairge ;" to which 
name, however, modern Irish scholars would ascribe a 
" Danish " origin, as it is supposed to be derived from a 
Danish chief called Lairge, mentioned in the Irish annals 
in the year 951. The Norwegians, on the other hand 
called it " Ve^SrafjorSr," the resemblance of which to 
Waterford is not to be mistaken. Near the coast of this 
" fiord," which may have given name to the town, is still 
to be seen a monument, very rare in Ireland, of the ancient 
Norwegians' art of fortification, namely, a round tower, 
said to have been erected in the year 1003 by the reigning 
Norwegian king in Waterford, Regnald, or Reginald 
(Ragnvald), and which to the present day is commonly 
called " Reginald's Tower." 

This tower, which in Irish was also called "Dundory," 
or the king's fortress, was afterwards used both as a 
fortress and a mint. After the English conquest of 
Waterford, Earl Strongbow used it in the year 1171 as a 
secure dwelling-place ; and, among other prisoners, for a 
long time kept Reginald, the last king of the " Danes " in 
Waterford, imprisoned in it. The tower afterwards under- 
went several changes, till, in the year 1819, it (or at least 
the exterior) was restored to its original form, just as the 
following delineation of it (after Petrie) shows. 






Sect. III.J 



Reginald's tower. 



319 




With regard to Dublin, however, the case is quite dif- 
ferent. The series of kings there from the year 853 until 
about 1200, and consequently for almost three centuries 
and a half, is pretty complete. It was a natural conse- 
quence of the considerable power and influence possessed 
by the kings of Dublin, that their names were often men- 



320 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. III. 

tioned in the chronicles in connection with important 
events both in Ireland and in the neighbouring countries. 
The Norwegian kings in Dublin knew how gradually to 
strengthen and extend their power, not only by arms, but 
also by a shrewd and able policy. They soon learnt how 
to avail themselves of the intestine disputes by which the 
Irish tribes and chiefs were divided. They joined one of 
the ruling parties, contracted marriage with the daughters 
of Irish kings and chieftains, and on their side gave Scan- 
dinavian women in wedlock to leading Irishmen. Accord- 
ing to the old Irish book called " the Book of Lecan," the 
Irish king Congolaich (934-954) had a son, Mortogh, by 
Radnalt, daughter of the Dublin king Anlaf, or Olaf. At 
a somewhat later period a Norwegian king in Dublin, 
named Anlaf, was married to an Irish woman, Dunlath, 
who was mother of the Dublin king " Gluin-Jarainn " 
(Iron- Knee). Similar marriages between Norwegian and 
Irish royal families are often mentioned ; even King Brian 
Boru, so adored by the Irish, was nearly related to the 
Norwegian kings. He was father of Teige and Donogh, 
by Gormlaith, or Kormlod, a daughter of Morogh Mac 
Finn, king of Leinster. But Gormlaith was also married 
for a long time to the Dublin king, Anlaf, by whom she 
had a son, afterwards the celebrated king of Dublin, 
Sigtryg Silkeskjaeg (Silk- beard); and thus Brian Bora's 
two sons Teige and Donogh — of whom Teige afterwards 
married Mor, a daughter of the " Danish " king Each- 
margach of Dublin— were half-brothers of their father's 
enemy, King Sigtryg. " The Book of Leinster " says 
that Gormlaith was likewise mother of the Norwegian- 
Irish king Amlaff Cuaran (Olaf Kvaran) ; whilst the Irish 
chronicler, Duald Mac Firbis, mentions this same Olaf 
Kvaran as married to Sadhbh (Save), a daughter of Brian 
Boru, and that even "at the time when the battle of 
Clontarf took place." After this we are better able to un- 
derstand how it happened that whole Irish tribes, with their 
kings at their head, so often fought in union with the Nor- 



Sect. III.] SCANDINAVIAN ALLIANCES. 32 L 

wegians and Danes ; since we learn that their mutual 
political interests were bound closer together by the 
ties of relationship. 

On the other hand, the Norwegian or Scandinavian kings 
of Dublin and other parts of Ireland also constantly main- 
tained connections, both of friendship and relationship, with 
their countrymen in England and Scotland, as well as in 
the mother-countries of Scandinavia. It might, indeed, 
sometimes happen that Scandinavian kings or Vikings, 
from Man or the Orkneys, attacked, nay even conquered 
for a time, the Norwegian kingdom of Dublin, particularly 
when the Norwegians in Ireland were at variance with one 
another. But in general the Scandinavian colonists in 
the British Isles appear to have stood or fallen with one 
another. Numerous Scandinavian warriors from England, 
Scotland, and the surrounding islands, fought now and 
then in conjunction with the Norwegians settled in 
Ireland, against the native Irish. But the Norwegian 
kings in Ireland frequently supported their friends in 
England and Scotland against the Anglo-Saxons and the 
Highland Scots, and at times won kingdoms there by force 
of arms. Mutual marriages, also, were frequently made, 
whilst Scandinavian merchants and Vikings, for instance, 
dwelt in Dublin at the court of the Norwegian kings. 
Thus the Norwegian prince Olaf Tryggveson, after having 
been christened at Dublin, stayed there for some time 
with the Norwegian king Olaf K varan, and married his 
sister Gyda. 

Many accounts testify that the Norwegians in Ireland, 
at least in the cities, and especially Dublin, were powerful 
enough to maintain their language, and the rest of their 
Scandinavian characteristics, in spite of the Irish. The Ice- 
landic bards, Thorgils Orraskjald and Gunnlaug Orms- 
tunga, are expressly stated to have visited the court of the 
Norwegian kings in Dublin in the tenth and eleventh 
centuries, where they diverted the Scandinavian warriors 
with their national songs. Ancient Irish manuscripts 

p 3 



322 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. III. 

contain proofs not only of the peculiar language, but also 
of the peculiar writing, of the Norwegians, or runes, which 
in Irish were called " Ogham na Loochlannach " or " Gall- 
ogham" (the Northmen's, or strangers', Ogham). Ogham 
was the name of a mode of writing then used by the Irish. 
There are also some traces of characteristic Scandinavian 
institutions among the Norwegians and Danes in Ireland. 
In an Irish poem of the early middle ages, about the Nor- 
wegian chief " Magnus the Great," the Norwegians are 
called " the people with the twelve counsellors." This 
leads us to think that the Norwegians, like the Danes in 
England, must have employed in their judicial proceedings 
a sort of jury, consisting of twelve men of repute, an 
institution so foreign and striking to the Irish, that they 
were led to characterize the Norwegians by it. It is at 
least quite certain that the Norwegians in Ireland, as the 
Irish chronicles admit, kept themselves entirely separate 
from the Irish with regard to their ecclesiastical institu- 
tions, and that they likewise had their own assize place in 
Dublin, which bore the Scandinavian name Thing. A 
document of the year 1258 conveys a gift of some ground 
in the suburbs of Dublin, in " Thengmotha " (from 
" mote," a meeting), which the Irish publisher of it (the 
Eev. K. Butler) correctly explains by " the place of legal 
assembly in the Danish times of Dublin." The Thing 
place, which seems to have been not far from the present 
site of Dublin Castle, where the Norwegians had erected 
a strong fortress, gave to the surrounding parish of St. 
Andrew the surname of " de Thengmote." 

One of the chief causes that the Norwegians in the 
Irish cities maintained uninterruptedly their Scandinavian 
characteristics, and consequently their independent power 
likewise, was that they not only lived in the midst of the 
Irish, but that, as Giraldus Cambrensis expressly intimates, 
they erected in every city a town of their own, surrounded 
with deep ditches and strong walls, which secured them 
against the attacks of the natives. They built a rather 



Sect. IV.] OSTMANTOWN, OE OXMANTOWN. 323 

extensive town for themselves on the river LifFey, near the 
old city of Dublin, which was strongly fortified with ditches 
and walls, and which, after the Norwegians and Danes (or 
Ostmen) settled there, obtained the name of Ostmantown 
(in Latin, " vicus," or " villa Ostmannorum "), i. e. the 
Eastmen's town. Even the Irish chronicles, which attest 
that, as early as the beginning of the tenth century, the 
Norwegians in Dublin had well intrenched themselves 
with walls and ramparts, also state that in the art of forti- 
fying towns they were far superior to the Irish. Ostman- 
town continued through the whole of the middle ages to 
form an entirely separate part of Dublin, and the gates of 
the strong fortifications with which it was surrounded were 
carefully closed every evening. The walls were at length 
razed, and Ostmantown, or, as it was now corruptly pro- 
nounced, " Oxmantown" (whence an Irish peer has 
obtained in modern times the title of Lord Oxmantown), 
was completely incorporated with Dublin. But to the 
present day the name of Oxmantown remains an incontro- 
vertible monument of an independent Norwegian town 
formerly existing within the greatest and most considerable 
city of Ireland. 



Section IV. 

Norwegian Names of Places, near Dublin. — Norwegian Burial Places. — 
Norwegian Weapons and Ornaments. 

The few Scandinavian names of places in Ireland are, 
with the exception of the previously-mentioned provinces, 
confined to the coasts, and there particularly to the names 
of islands and fiords. On the west coast there are only 
two rather doubtful ones ; namely, Enniskerry, an island 
(the first part of which is the Irish Inis, an island, w 7 hilst 
the latter part seems to include the Scandinavian name 
" Sker," or Skjcer, a reef); and the harbour, Smerwick, 



H'-U THE NOKWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. IV. 

Several places on rivers are still called Laxweir, as for 
example on the Shannon near Limerick and Killaloe, 
where salmon are caught in a net stretched across the 
river. The word " Lax " (salmon) is unknown in the 
Irish language, but appears, as we have seen, in several 
Scandinavian names of places in Scotland. On the south 
coast, besides Waterford, we can mention at most only the 
Isle of Dursey (porsey?) with the small adjoining island of 
Calf. The greatest number of Scandinavian names appears 
on the east coast. In some names of places situated on 
the finest fiords we may trace the Scandinavian ending 
"fjorSr;" as, for instance, to the south of Dublin in 
Wexford (in Irish, Loch Garman), and to the north of 
Dublin, in Strangford and Carlingford (in Irish, Cuan 
Cairlinne). But in general, all the names of places of 
Scandinavian origin, or with Scandinavian terminations, 
are collected round Dublin as the central point. 

At the southern entrance of the bay of Dublin is the 
Island of " Dalkey " (in Irish, " Delg Inis "), and at the 
northern entrance the high and rounded cape Howth (in 
Irish, " Ceann Fuaid," or " Beann Edair"), which in 
ancient letters is also called Hofda, Houete, and Houeth. 
This is clearly the Scandinavian " hofud," or "Hoved" 
(head), a name particularly suited to the place. In the 
immediate neighbourhood is also the old Danish town 
Baldoyle, and the district of Finngall, colonized by the 
Norwegians. Directly north of Howth rises " Irelands- 
eye " (in Irish, " Inis Eirinn" and " Inis Meic Ness-ain "); 
and still farther to the north the islands of " Lambay " (in 
Irish, "Rachrainn") and " Skerries," or the Skjaere (reefs). 
Close to the west side of Dublin is the little town of 
Leixlip, where there is a famed salmon-leap in the river 
Liffey. In old Latin epistles the name of Laxleip is 
translated by " saltus salmonis," which is plainly neither 
more nor less than the old Norsk "lax-hlaup" (Dan., Lax- 
lob; Eng. y salmon-leap): which name reminds us again of 
the salmon fishery, so highly cherished by the ancient 



Sect. IV.] SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES. 325 

Norwegians. It is doubtful whether the county of Wick- 
low, which adjoins that of Dublin, derived its name from 
the Norwegians ; though it is not improbable that it did, 
as in Irish it is called Inbhear Dea, but in old documents 
Wykynglo, Wygyngelo, and Wykinlo, which remind us of 
the Scandinavian Vig (Eng., bay) or Viking. 

At all events the decidedly Scandinavian names of places 
around Dublin sufficiently indicate the predominance of 
the ancient Norwegians and Danes in that city. Discoveries 
made by excavations in and around Dublin have also, in 
recent times, very remarkably contributed towards placing 
this matter in a still clearer light. 

In constructing a railway close by Kilmainham, now the 
most western part of Dublin, the workmen some years 
ago laid bare a number of ancient tombs. In these lay 
whole rows of skeletons, each in its own grave, and by the 
side of them many kinds of iron weapons and ornaments. 
Fortunately several of the specimens thus discovered were 
preserved, principally for the museum of the Eoyal Irish 
Academy in Dublin ; by which means Irish archaeologists 
had an opportunity of convincing themselves that these 
antiquities must be a good deal older than the English 
conquest of Ireland ; yet that they are by no means of the 
kind usually found in Ireland, and belonging to the period 
of the Irish iron age. It is thus placed beyond all doubt, 
that they are not Irish remains, but derived from the 
Norwegian and Danes at that time settled in Ireland. 
The few illustrations here annexed will present to every 
Scandinavian archaeologist mere well-known objects, cor- 
responding so exactly with the antiquities of the iron age 
preserved in our Scandinavian museums, that we might 
even believe them to have been made by the same hands. 

The swords (Figs. 1-3), which very much resemble the 
Scandinavian swords found in England (described at p. 45,) 
are from twenty-four to thirty.two inches long. Some have 
two edges, others only one. The pommel and guard of the 
hilt are in several of them ornamented with very neatly 



326 



THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. 



[Sect. IV 



inlaid pieces of gold, silver, and other metals. On one 
of them some engraved Latin letters have been found, 




Sect. IV.J SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES. 327 

%■ 5. Fig. 4. Fig. 6. 






Fig. 12. 



Fig. 7. 



Fig. 10. 




Fig. 11. 




328 



THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. 



[Sect. IV. 



which may also be seen on a sword of the iron age in the 
Museum at Copenhagen. Even the old Irish chronicles 
relate that the Norwegians placed inscriptions on their 
swords. Thus an ancient Irish poem says : " Hither was 
brought, in the sword sheath of Lochlan's king, the 
Ogham across the sea. It was his own hand that cut it." 
It is most probable that by the Ogham writing is here 
meant " the Norwegian's Ogham," or 
runes, with which, as our Sagas state, 
the old Northmen's swords were fre- 
quently ornamented. 

Several genuine Irish iron swords of 
that ancient period have been discovered 
in Ireland at various times, both in the 
river Shannon and in old Irish castle- 
yards, or on the sites of castles. They 
are much smaller than the Norwegian 
swords, and in general want both the 
guard and the large pommel at the end 
of the bilt, as the annexed figure of 
those most frequently found shows. On 
the whole the Irish iron swords are of 
an older and more imperfect kind, and 
very strikingly resemble the bronze 
sword used in Ireland in the age of 
bronze. On placing the short and ill- 
formed Irish sword by the side of the 
much larger, better, and handsomer 
Norwegian one, we may almost say that 
we obtain, as it were, a living image of 
the degenerate and miserably-equipped 
Irish people in comparison with the 
strong and well-armed Norwegians. 

The Norwegian warriors who found 
their last resting-place at Kilmainham, 
were evidently buried with all their arms, 
from the renowned " Danish battle-axe " 



Sect. IV.] SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES. 329 

(Fig. 4), and the lance (Figs. 5, 6) — which must have been 
deposited with the entire shaft, since the ferrule (Fig. 7) 
has heen found — down to the shield. But as the last was 
mostly of wood, nothing more remains of the whole shield 
than the large iron boss (Figs. 8, 9), which was placed in the 
middle, and which served to protect the hand which bore 
the shield. 

Among ail the things discovered atKilmainham, scarcely 
any more decidedly indicate their Norwegian, or Scandina- 
vian, origin, than the bowl-formed brooches (Figs. 10, 11), 
already mentioned when speaking of the coasts of Scotland, 
and which are not found in any other part of Ireland. 
There are also some very peculiar small bone buttons 
(Fig. 12), having a small hole in the flat side, penetrating 
the button for some way without entirely piercing through 
it. Buttons of this form have not been before found in 
Ireland, though they are very well known in the Scan- 
dinavian North. They are discovered in Sweden and 
Norway, in graves of the period of the iron age, or times 
of the Vikings. It is highly probable that in those times 
they served as men, or counters in some game, as they 
are generally found, especially in Norway, collected together 
in great numbers, and in conjunction with dice. To judge 
from the holes in the bottom, they have certainly been used 
in a sort of game of draughts ; for, till late in the middle 
ages, nay, almost down to our own times, the Icelanders 
were accustomed to furnish their boards with small pivots, 
on which they placed the men, that they might not by any 
accidental shaking of the table be mixed with one another, 
and the whole game thus suddenly disturbed. The Irish 
also seem to have had a somewhat similar mode of pro- 
ceeding at that time, as among a great number of things 
undoubtedly Irish, discovered at Dunshauglin, there was 
found a bone button or knob, certainly a draughtsman, 
which, instead of a hole, is furnished with a metal point 
at the bottom, by which it was evidently intended to be 
fixed in the board. But for the Scandinavian Vikings, 






I 



v% 



. > 



330 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. IV. 

who were so much at sea, and who, it seems, liked to while 
away the time by playing draughts, such a precaution was 
doubly necessary, as the rolling of the vessel would other- 
wise have thrown the draughtsmen together every moment. 
It is remarkable that at Kilmainham, as well as in Scan- 
dinavia itself, the draughtsmen are found deposited in the 
graves, by the side of the arms and ornaments of the 
warriors. This affords an instructive proof that the old 
Northmen must have been very fond of gaming ; and con- 
sequently that the picture drawn by Tacitus of the passion 
of the ancient Germans for play, which at times even led 
them to gamble away their personal freedom, might apply 
to their neighbours, the Scandinavians. 

We can scarcely err in referring the antiquities found 
at Kilmainham to the ninth, or at latest to the tenth 
century. The mode of burial is heathenish rather than 
Christian ; and, as is known, the Norwegians settled in 
Ireland were converted to Christianity in the tenth century 
at latest, and probably still earlier. It is not at all pro- 
bable that the graves are to be attributed to an isolated 
band of heathen Vikings, who came over at a later period, 
and who, after a battle, buried their dead on the field. 
The great number of graves, and the careful manner in 
which each is said to have been set or enclosed with stones, 
rather show that they were made in all tranquillity by the 
Norwegians and Danes, who at that time dwelt in Dublin, 
or its immediate neighbourhood, and who probably had a 
common burial ground there. Scandinavians appear also 
to have been buried in an adjoining churchyard, which at 
that time belonged to a convent dedicated to St. Magnen, 
but which afterwards became the burial-place for a hospital 
of the knights of the order of St. John, founded at Kil- 
mainham. It has at length become one of the largest 
churchyards in Dublin. In corroboration of the conjecture 
that Scandinavians were buried in it, it may be mentioned 
that a tall upright stone with carved spiral ornaments stands 
there — a sort of monumental, or bauta-stone, under which, 



Sect. IV.] SCANDINAVIAN BUEIAL-PLACES. 331 

several years ago, various coins were discovered, minted by- 
Norwegian kings in Ireland ; and near them a handsome 
two-edged iron sword, with a guard and a longish flat 
pommel. Some have, indeed, thought that this sword 
must have belonged to Murrough. a son of Brian Boru, 
or to Murrough's son Turlough, as both these warriors, 
having fallen in the battle of Clontarf, are said to have 
been buried in this churchyard. This, however, is only a 
vague conjecture ; whilst it is quite certain that the above- 
mentioned sword agrees most accurately in form with the 
many swords of the Vikings' times found in the North. 
There is, therefore, reason to suppose, that the sword was 
formerly deposited there with the body of a Norwegian war- 
rior ; and this supposition is strengthened by the discovery 
of the Norwegian-Irish coins. 

Other old Norwegian, or Scandinavian burial-places, 
have been discovered in the Phoenix Park, near Dublin, 
where a pair of bowl-formed brooches were found near a 
skeleton. In making, a few years ago, some excavations in 
Dublin itself, in " College Green," which formerly lay 
outside the city, the workmen met with several iron swords, 
axes, lances, arrows, and shields, of the well-known Scan- 
dinavian forms. It is probable that this also was a burial- 
place similar to that at Kilmainham. With the exception 
of the burial-place on the coast of Lough Lame, the 
ancient Ulfreksfjord, no other decidedly Norwegian graves 
are hitherto known to have been discovered in Ireland. 

Just as the proportionally numerous Norwegian graves 
near Dublin prove that a considerable number of 
Norwegians must have been settled there, so also do the 
peculiar form and workmanship of the antiquities that 
have been discovered in them afford a fresh evidence of 
the superior civilization which the Norwegians in and near 
Dublin must, for a good while at least, have possessed in 
comparison with the Irish. The antiquities hitherto spoken 
of only prove, indeed, that the Norwegians and other 
Northmen were superior to the Irish with regard to arms 



332 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. V. 

and martial prowess. Bat there are other Norwegian 
antiquities, originating in Ireland, and found both in and 
out of that country, which also prove that the Danes and 
Norwegians formerly settled there contributed, like their 
kinsmen in England, by peaceful pursuits, to influence 
very considerably the progress of civilization in Ireland. 



Section V. 

Ancient Irish Christianity and Civilization. — Trade. — No Irish, but 
Norwegian Coins. — Sigtryg Silkeskjaeg. — Norwegian Coiners. 

Centuries before the introduction of Christianity into the 
Scandinavian North (in the tenth and eleventh centuries) — 
nay, centuries before the actual commencement of the 
Viking expeditions — the Irish people had been Christian- 
ized. At a very early period numbers of churches and 
convents were erected in Ireland, which was also celebrated 
for its many holy men. It was a common saying that the 
Irish soil was so holy that neither vipers, nor any other 
poisonous reptiles, could exist upon it. Numerous priests 
set out from Ireland as missionaries to the islands lying to 
the west of Scotland ; nay, they even went as far as the 
Faroe Islands and Iceland, long before those islands had 
been colonized. Thus, when the Northmen first dis- 
covered Iceland (about the year 860), they found no popu- 
lation there ; but on " Papey," in " Papyli," and several 
places in the east and south of the country, they found 
traces of " Papar," or Christian priests, who had left 
behind them croziers, bells, and Irish books ; whence 
they perceived that these priests were " Westmen," or 
Irishmen ; for just as the Irish called the Scandinavians 
" Ostmen," because their home lay to the east of Ireland s 
so also did the Scandinavians call the Irish "Westmen." 
The most southern group of islands near Iceland is called 
to the present day " Vestmannaeyjar " (the Westman Isles), 



Sect. V.] CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 333 

because, at the time of their colonization, a number of Irish 
serfs, or Westmen, were put to death there for deceiving 
their masters. 

Not even the Norwegian expeditions into Ireland, and 
the destruction of churches and convents by which they 
were accompanied, were able to annihilate the influence of 
the Irish clergy on the diffusion of Christianity in the north- 
western part of Europe. Not only were the Norwegians 
and Danes settled in Ireland and the rest of the Western 
Isles soon converted from heathenism by Irish monks and 
priests, but Christianity was communicated through these 
converts to many of their Scandinavian countrymen, who 
visited Ireland partly as Vikings and partly as merchants. 
Thus the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggveson was baptized 
by an abbot on the Sylling Isles near Ireland, or, as other 
Sagas state, " to the west over in Ireland; " whence we may 
probably conclude that the Sylling Isles are not, as was 
before supposed, the Scilly Isles near England, but the 
Skellig Isles on the south-west coast of Ireland, on one of 
which there was at that time a celebrated abbey. At all 
events, it is certain that Olaf Tryggveson, during his long 
abode with his brother-in-law, King Olaf Kvaran, in Dub- 
lin, must, by his constant intercourse with the Irish 
Christians, have been strengthened in his determination to 
christianize Norway. Another proof of the influence of 
Christianity in Ireland on the North is, that an Irish 
princess, Sunneva, was at a later period worshipped as a 
saint in Norway. Her body is alleged to have been 
deposited in a large and handsome shrine over the high 
altar in Christ Church, in Bergen, and on the 8th of July 
the Norwegians celebrated an annual mass in her honour. 
Even in Iceland there is a fiord, or firth, on the north- 
west coast, called " PatreksfjorSr," after St. Patrick, the 
patron saint of Ireland. 

As we have before stated, the commencements of a 
national Irish literature were also developed among the 
clergy at a very early period ; which, together with the 



334 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. V. 

numerous ecclesiastical buildings in Ireland, prove that 
the Irish clergy of those times must have attained no mean 
degree of civilization, and that with regard to education 
they must, in certain respects, have been a great deal in 
advance of the heathen Scandinavians. But not to speak 
of the Icelandic literature — which developed itself in the 
remotest North immediately after the heathen times, and 
contemporaneously with the Norwegian dominion in Ire- 
land, and which both in form and substance was un- 
doubtedly far superior to the Irish — there is reason enough 
to doubt whether the Irish people of that time, although 
christianized, were really more educated or more advanced 
in true civilization than the certainly too much decried 
heathen Norwegians and their Scandinavian kinsmen. 
It is true, indeed, that the Norwegian Vikings made their 
way with fire and sword, that they destroyed a number of 
churches and convents in Ireland, and that in this manner 
they often occasioned the most violent intestine commo- 
tions, which for a time, at least, could not but tend to hinder 
the progressive development of Christian civilization. But 
the Irish chronicles themselves teach us that the Christian 
Irish acted precisely in the same manner at the same 
period. In their mutual contentions they often burnt 
ecclesiastical buildings, plundered the shrines of saints, 
and maltreated the clergy, besides, as is well known, con- 
stantly perpetrating amongst themselves the most horrible 
butchery. Lastly, in Ireland, as in England, we must 
certainly distinguish between the Vikings, who came to 
the country for the sake of war and plunder, and the 
colonists, whose aim it was to obtain a new home in Ire- 
land. The latter brought with them not only great skill 
in the forging and management of arms, as well as in 
building and navigating ships for expeditions, both of war 
and trade, but likewise had their own runic writing; and 
by the readiness with which they imbibed the newer 
Christian civilization, soon acquired the ascendancy in the 
most important Irish cities, so as to become perceptibly 



Sect. V.] IEISH CIVILIZATION. 335 

enough, not only the equals, but the superiors of the 
Irish. 

What particularly warrants us in doubting the alleged 
early and extensive civilization of the Irish, is the very 
striking circumstance that, previously to the arrival of the 
Norwegians, they do not appear to have carried on any very 
great trade, or on the whole to have had any very exten- 
sive intercourse with the rest of Europe. This appears 
particularly from the fact that the Irish at that time (about 
the year 800) had not yet minted any coins of their own ; 
although their Celtic neighbours in Britain and Gaul had 
for centuries — that is, from about the birth of Christ — 
minted a great number, mostly in imitation of Greek and 
Koman coins. And though the Eomans, Franks, and Anglo- 
Saxons, after their conquests of France and England, had 
made very considerable coinages in those countries, we do 
not even find in Ireland any trace of the coins of these 
neighbouring people being brought over the sea in any con- 
siderable quantity before the period mentioned. Yet in 
other countries, where the minting of coins also came late 
into use— as, for instance, in the Scandinavian North — so 
great a quantity of older foreign coins, together with all 
sorts of foreign valuables, is continually dug up as to show 
that even at a very early period active connections of trade 
must have existed between the Northmen and more 
southern nations. Neither Phenician nor Celtic coins 
are known to have been found in Ireland, and discoveries 
even of Roman and the more ancient Anglo-Saxon coins 
are very rare. 

That Ireland should have remained for so long a period 
and to so great an extent unconnected with the neigh- 
bouring nations, was undoubtedly caused partly by its 
remote situation, partly by the indolence of the Irish and 
the disinclination so general among the Celts to traverse 
the sea, to which an old author (Giraldus Cambrensis) ex- 
pressly alludes. It must partly also be ascribed to the 
peculiar hostile position which the Irish were obliged to 



336 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. V. 

assume towards the Romans, Anglo- Saxons, and Franks ; 
since these people having gradually conquered the Celtic 
countries, France and England, naturally only awaited a 
favourable opportunity to make themselves masters of 
Celtic Ireland also. According to this we might even, 
perhaps, regard the isolation of Ireland as a necessary 
system of self-defence adopted by the Irish. 

But no sooner were the Norwegians and Danes settled in 
the chief cities of Ireland, than Irish trade and navigation 
obtained an extent and importance before unknown. An 
active commerce was opened with England and Normandy 
through the numerous and influential Scandinavian mer- 
chants settled in those countries, as well as, of course, 
with the mother-countries of Scandinavia. In Ireland, 
therefore, as well as in England, Arabian coins, minted in 
countries near the Caspian Sea, are here and there found 
buried, which have evidently been imported by Scandi- 
navian merchants. The Sagas mention regular trading 
voyages to Ireland from Norway, and even from Iceland ; 
where there was, for instance, a man named Rafn, who 
was commonly called Rafn Hlimreksfarer (Eng., Limerick 
trader), on account of his regular voyages to Limerick 
(Limerick being called by the old Northmen, Hlimrek). 
The Sagas further mention, under the head of Ireland, 
" Kaupmannaeyjar " (Eng., the merchant islands), probably 
what are now called " Copeland Islands," on the north- 
eastern coast, where there may have been a sort of ren- 
dezvous for the ships of Scandinavian merchants. The 
Icelandic and Norwegian ships brought fish, hides, and 
valuable furs to the English and Irish coasts ; whence, 
again, they carried home costly stuffs and clothes, corn, 
honey, wine, and other products of the south. 

These accounts of the old Northmen, respecting their 
commerce in Ireland, are far from being unsupported. The 
Welsh author, Giraldus Cambrensis, who visited Ireland 
during the English conquest, whilst the Ostmen were 
still living there in considerable numbers, says in plain 



Sect. V.] SCANDINAVIAN MERCHANTS. 337 

words that they had settled near the best harbours in 
Ireland, where they built themselves towns, and that they 
had by no means come to the country as enemies, but with 
the design of carrying on a peaceful trade. He adds that 
for this reason the Irish chiefs, who clearly saw the im- 
portance and advantages of commercial connections with 
other countries, had not at first in any way opposed the 
establishment of these foreign towns in their country ; but 
that, after the Ostmen had very much increased, and after 
their towns had become well fortified, the old dissensions 
between them and the Irish revived. 

In perfect accordance with this are the statements of 
the Irish themselves respecting the many Scandinavian 
merchants in the towns of the Ostmen. An old Irish 
manuscript relating to the battle of Clontarf (" Cath 
Chluana Tarbh ") states that, after the battle, " no Danes 
were left in the kingdom, except such a number of artisans 
and merchants in Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cork, and 
Limerick, as could be easily mastered at any time, should 
they dare to rebel ; and these King Brian very wisely per- 
mitted to remain in these seaport towns, for the purpose of 
encouraging trade and traffic, as they possessed many 
ships, and were experienced sailors." Duald Mac Firbis 
also says in his chronicles that in his time (1650) " most 
of the merchants in Dublin were the descendants of the 
Norwegian-Irish king, Olaf K varan." 

That the Norwegians and Danes must really have pos- 
sessed themselves of the Irish trade, and given it a new 
impulse, clearly appears from the circumstance that the 
Norwegian kings in Ireland were the first who caused 
coins to be minted there. One of these coins, which for- 
merly belonged to the Timm's collection in Copenhagen, 
but which is now in the collection of M. von Romer, in 
Dresden, seems (according to the opinion of that distin- 
guished numismatologist C. J. Thomsen, of Copenhagen) 
to have been minted by a Scandinavian king of Dublin, as 
early as the eighth or ninth century. It is an imitation of 

Q 



338 



THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. 



[Sect. V. 



the ancient Merovingian coins, and has a remarkable 
inscription on the obverse, half in runes and half in Latin 
letters, but which can scarcely be read otherwise than 
" Cunut u Dieflio," or, Canute in Dublin. 




The Old Northmen call Dublin " Dyflin," whence the 
surrounding district also obtained the name of " DyfTinar- 
skiri," as appears in the Sagas. This legible inscription 
encircles the bust of a royal warrior, clad in scale armour. 
On the reverse are seen the letters ENAE, and under 
them two figures, both turning their faces upwards in the 
same direction, and each extending a very large hand, 
whilst in their other hands, joined together, they hold a 
ring, as if they were taking an oath on the holy ring. 
They are, besides, represented as standing before, or sitting 
on, an elevated platform (perhaps an altar?), under which 
is a mark (^) like the letter S placed on its side. 
These figures probably contain an allusion to some treaty 
concluded between an Irish king and the Scandinavian 
king Canute. 

By the kindness of Mr. C. F. Herbst, of Copenhagen, 
I have been enabled to give a wood-cut of this silver coin, 
the only one of its kind, and never before copied. The 
drawing was made from a cast taken in Dresden. If the 
preceding explanation, which is certainly by no means far- 
fetched, be the right one, we shall consequently have a 
proof that other Scandinavian kings, besides Olaf the 
White, the first-mentioned in the Sagas, reigned at a very 
early period in Dublin, if only for a short time. But all 
the rest of the Norwegian coins minted in Ireland are 
of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. They are of 
silver, and undoubtedly coined in various towns of Ireland 
besides Dublin, as in Limerick, Cork, Waterford, and 
several other towns where the Ostmen had settled. 



Sect. V.] 



NORWEGIAN- IRISH COINS. 



339 



The most remarkable of all are the Dublin coins, espe- 
cially those with the legend " Sihtric rex Dyfl," or, Sigtryg 
king of Dublin. It is true that there were several kings 
of Dublin of this name in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh 
centuries ; but the coins alluded to, to judge from the im- 
pressions, all of which are imitations of contemporary 
Anglo-Saxon dies, and especially of those of King 
Ethelred the Second, must for the most part have be- 
longed to Sigtryg, surnamed " Silkbeard," who reigned in 
Dublin at the close of the tenth and beginning of the 
eleventh century, and who was one of those who fought 
the battle of Clontarf against Brian Boru. It is very 
remarkable that on Sigtryg's coins, as well as on several of 
the Danish coins minted in the north of England, we find 
not only the Latin title " Bex," but also the Scandinavian 
" Cununc " (king), as, for instance, on the annexed coin 
(in Mr. C. F. Herbst's collection), which has never before 
been copied : — 




On the obverse is the legend " Sihtric cunuic dyn," or 
Sigtryg king of Dublin; and on the reverse, "Byrhtmer 
mo on Vin ;" whence we see that the coiner had an Anglo- 
Saxon name, and was certainly an Anglo-Saxon, particularly 
since he is said to have been " on Vin," that is, of Win- 
chester. Among the coiners' names on the Norwegian- 
Irish coins, we meet, indeed, with several Scandinavian 
names, such as Stirbirn (Styrbjorn), Azcetel (Asketil), 
Ivore (Ivar), Colbrand, Tole (Tule), and Oadin (Odin?); 
whence we may reasonably conclude that the Norwegians in 
Ireland soon learned to coin, and were not, therefore, always 
compelled to avail themselves of foreign coiners. But 
most of Sigtryg's coiners were Anglo-Saxons ; and not a 

Q 2 



340 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. V. 

few of his coins are, like that above delineated, even struck 
by coiners in England ; as, for instance, in " Efrweec," or 
" Eofer (wick)" (York), " Veced" (Watchet, in Somerset- 
shire), "Vilt" (Wilton), "Vint" (Winchester), and "Luni" 
(London). This admits of two explanations ; either that 
these coiners at Sigtryg's request minted coins for him, or 
that Sigtryg, who at one time was driven from his kingdom, 
resided in some at least of the above-named places, and 
caused coins to be minted there (?). The origin of several 
coins minted in Dublin about Sigtryg's time by the Anglo- 
Saxon king Ethelred the Second — as well as by the 
Danish-English king Canute the Great, and which for the 
most part are struck by the same Dublin coiner, Faeremin, 
who minted most of Sigtryg's own coins — is involved in no 
less obscurity. Although history is silent, we might be 
almost tempted to believe that Ethelred and Canute were 
acknowledged by Sigtryg as his liege lords, or that pos- 
sibly they ruled in Dublin for a short time ; but in weigh- 
ing these probabilities it must be remembered that neither 
Ethelred nor Canute calls himself on these coins king of 
Dublin, but simply " Rex Anglorum," or king of the 
English. 

The great number and variety in which Sigtryg's coins 
appear, and the comparatively good stamp that distin- 
guishes them from the rest of the Norwegian-Irish coins, 
seem to show that the years of Sigtryg's reign must have 
been a period very favourable to Scandinavian trade and 
power in Ireland. In later times the Norwegian-Irish 
coins became worse, as the coiners did not confine them- 
selves to imitating coins of the older Norwegian-Irish 
kings, and of the later English kings, Canute the Great, 
Hardicanute, Edward the Confessor, William the Con- 
queror, and others, but even copied copies to such a 
degree that the stamp and inscriptions of the original 
coins were very frequently not to be recognised. Of the 
coins current in Ireland in the last half of the eleventh, 
and in the whole of the twelfth, century, pretty large 



Sect. VI.] NORWEGIAN-IRISH COINS. 341 

quantities have been dug up, both in and out of Ireland, 
and particularly in the neighbouring Isle of Man. 

It must, however, be regarded as very doubtful how far 
this deterioration of the coins affords any reasonable con- 
firmation of the justness of the usual conviction among 
the Irish, that after Sigtryg's time, or rather after his 
defeat in the battle of Clontarf, the power of the Nor- 
wegians in Ireland was completely broken. For, in that 
case, we might expect, among other things, that the victo- 
rious Irish kings, during the long period of more than a 
hundred and fifty years, which elapsed from the time of 
the battle of Clontarf until the English conquest of Ire- 
land, would have minted their own coins. But during the 
whole of this period there are very few coins that can 
possibly be regarded as having been minted for native 
Irish kings. For the rest, the whole of the coins minted 
in Ireland, from the commencement of minting there (at 
latest in 950) till the English conquest (1171), seem to 
owe their existence exclusively to the kings and bishops of 
the Ostmen, who ruled in the most important trading 
towns of Ireland *. 






Section VI. 

The Battle of Clontarf.— Power of the Ostmen after the Battle. — Their 

Churches and Bishops. — Their Land and Sea Forces .The English 

Conquest. — Remains of the Ostmen — Their Importance for Ireland. 

The cause of the battle of Clontarf, so celebrated in 
song and legend, or, as it is called in the Sagas, " Brians- 
bardagi" (Brian's battle, after King Brian, who fell in it 
in 1014), is not precisely known. All that we are ac- 
quainted with is, that Brian, who was connected by very 
close ties of relationship with the Norwegian royal family 
in Dublin, had long availed himself of the assistance of 
the Norwegians to subdue other Irish princes, until, at 

* See Appendix, No. II. 



342 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [S- 



length, after gaining victories in that manner, he came to 
a rupture with King Sigtryg of Dublin. The prospects of 
Sigtryg, and of the Norwegian power in Ireland, seem 
really to have been threatening enough ; at least it is said 
that Scandinavian warriors hastened in numbers to Sigtryg's 
assistance from the Scandinavian kingdoms in England, 
the Isle of Man, the Syder Isles, and Orkneys. From the 
last, in particular, came Jarl Sigurd the Stout, with a 
chosen force, in the midst of which waved a flag with the 
image of Odin's holy raven. Sigurd's own mother had 
woven this raven, which, with fluttering wings, had often 
before led the warriors to victory and glory. 

This time, however, the raven was checked in its flight. 
After many of the standard bearers had been killed, 
Sigurd Jarl himself took the flag from the staff, and 
w ? rapt it about his body. He seemed to foresee, what 
really happened shortly afterwards, that the raven flag 
would be his winding-sheet. The Norwegians were at 
length forced to give way, even if the battle was not so 
entirely lost as the exaggerated Irish accounts represent. 
The Scandinavian auxiliaries withdrew to their ships, and 
King Sigtryg retired with the remnant of his army to 
Dublin. 

But, as the Irish chronicles contain nothing about 
Sigtryg and his men having been afterwards expelled 
from Dublin, or about the Norwegian dominion there 
having been entirely destroyed, we cannot conclude from 
them that the power of the Ostmen in the rest of the 
Irish cities was annihilated in consequence of Sigtryg's 
defeat in the battle of Clontarf. It would, besides, have 
been singular enough if the power of the Norwegians in 
Ireland had been perfectly destroyed so early as the year 
1014, since it was just after that time that the Northmen 
in the neighbouring countries acquired their greatest power 
by means of their victories. Instead of the Norwegian 
influence in Ireland having ceased, we not only find, long 
after this battle, King Sigtryg of Dublin fighting bravely 



Sect. VI.] THE NORWEGIAN-IRISH CHURCH. 343 

with his Ostmen, though at times with varying fortune, 
against several Irish kings and chiefs, but we further 
behold the Ostmen displaying a very remarkable degree of 
strength and independence in various places in Ireland. 

About five-and-twenty years after the battle of Clontarf 
(say the Irish chroniclers themselves), Sigtryg, king of the 
Ostmen in Dublin, and Donat (Dunan), their bishop, built, 
in the middle of that city, the church of the Holy Trinity, 
also called Christ Church. That the Ostmen should then 
have founded one of the principal churches of Dublin, 
which even lay without their own town (Ostmantown), in 
the very heart of ancient Dublin, is highly significant. 
After the church was built, Bishop Donat presented several 
relics to it, amongst which are mentioned " pieces of the 
clothes of King Olaf the Saint." The great respect in 
which the name of the Norwegian Saint Olaf was held in 
Dublin is also manifest from the circumstance that a 
church consecrated to St. Olave, or, as the Irish common 
people gradually corrupted the name, to " Tulloch" (com- 
pare the name of Tooley Street in London, corrupted 
from St. Olave Street), was to be found there till at least 
far into the sixteenth century. This church adjoined the 
northern end of Fishshamble Street, near Wood-Quay; but 
originally, perhaps, it was just outside the city. 

In the same year (1038) that Christ Church was, partly 
through the exertions of Bishop Donat, erected in Dublin, 
he likewise built the chapel of St. Michael. Half a 
century later (1095) another " Ostman " built Saint Michan's 
Church in the " Ostmen's" town in Dublin ; and about the 
same time the cathedral in Waterford, dedicated to the 
Holy Trinity, was founded and erected by the Ostmen 
there. 

The " Ostmen" in Ireland thus possessed not only their 
own churches, but likewise, as the Irish records also men- 
tion, their own bishops, who were consecrated in England 
by the archbishop of Canterbury ; whilst the Irish bishops 
were consecrated in Ireland itself by the Irish archbishop 



344 THE NOKWEGIANS IN IEELAND. [Sect, VI. 

of Armagh. The Dublin " Ostmen s " first bishop Donat, 
or Dunan, died in the year 1074, and was buried in 
Christ Church, to the erection of which he had himself so 
considerably contributed. After him, by desire of the 
Dublin king Godred, or Godfred, another " Ostman," 
Patrick, was chosen bishop of the Ostmen in Dublin, but 
perished by shipwreck on his voyage home from Canter- 
bury (1084). He was succeeded by the " Ostman " Donat 
O'Haingly ( + 1095); whose cousin, Samuel O'Haingly, 
previously a monk in the convent of St. Alban's in Eng- 
land, afterwards filled the see of the "Ostmen" in Dublin 
until the year 1121. His successor, Gregorius, was the 
first of these Ostmen's bishops in Dublin who was made 
archbishop. This probably arose from the circumstance of 
the " Ostmen " in the other Irish towns having in the 
meantime obtained bishops, who were now to have a 
common superior in the Archbishop of Dublin. In the 
year ] 096 the " Ostmen " in Waterford are said to have 
obtained a bishop, Malchus, who is stated to have been a 
native of Ireland. In the year 1136 Waterford had an 
" Ostman " named Toste (Tuistius, or Tostius) for its 
bishop. A few years later (1340) Gille, or Gilbert, the 
" Ostmen s " bishop of Limerick, died ; after whom the 
" Ostmen " chose a certain Patrick. In the year 1151 the 
" Ostman" Harald, bishop of Limerick, died, and was 
succeeded by his countryman Thorgils ("Thorgesius ")» 
Twenty years previously (1131) the death of the "Ostman" 
Everard, or Eberhard, abbot of the convent of St. Mary, 
near Dublin, is mentioned ; which confirms, what is indeed 
almost a matter of course, that the Ostmen, who had their 
own churches and bishops, must also have had their own 
convents partly filled with Scandinavian monks and abbots. 
At length, in the year 1161, Gregorius, archbishop of 
Dublin, died ; and from his time until the present Dublin 
has constantly been the seat of one of Ireland's principal 
archbishops. But precisely because this archbishop rie 
was originally founded by Ostmen, or foreigners, the arch- 



Sect. VI.] ARCHBISHOPRIC OF DUBLIN. 345 

bishop of Dublin did not afterwards become the pri- 
mate of all Ireland, as, from the importance of Dublin, 
we might otherwise have expected. That dignity, on the 
contrary, has constantly been reserved for the genuine old 
Irish archbishopric of Armagh, in the north-east of Ire- 
land. Even Gregorius' successor in the archiepiscopal see 
is said to have been consecrated in Dublin by the arch- 
bishop of Armagh. It has lately been discovered (compare 
P. Chalmers in the Journal of the Brit. ArchaBol. Assoc, 
Oct., 1850, p. 323, &c.) that these archbishops of Dublin 
not only administered their own diocese, but, at least at 
times, acted as superintendents of the Norwegian bishop- 
rics in the Isle of Man and the Sudreyjar. There is a 
letter of Pope Honorius of the beginning of the thirteenth 
century, from which it appears that the archbishop of 
Dublin at that time consecrated a bishop of Man and the 
Sudreyjar, a privilege which in more ancient times be- 
longed to the archbishops of York, and afterwards (from 
1181 to 1334) to the archbishops of Trondhjem. It is 
quite certain that this was a result of the lively intercourse 
which undoubtedly took place between the successors of 
the Ostmen in Ireland and their near kinsmen in the 
Norwegian kingdoms in Man and the Sudreyjar. 

It was, above all, a very fortunate circumstance for the 
independence of the Irish Ostmen that such powerful 
Norwegian kingdoms continued to exist on the west coast 
of Scotland. From these they could usually obtain assist- 
ance in their battles with the Irish; and by means of 
them they also kept up a constant connection with their 
Norwegian fatherland. That they were able to maintain 
their peculiar independent position in Ireland for more 
than a century after the Danish dominion in England had 
ceased to exist, was clearly not so much owing to their 
military skill and compact force, in comparison with the 
internal dissensions and perfect want of union among the 
Irish, as to the considerable wealth and power which they 
constantly derived from their extensive trade and naviga- 

Q 3 



346 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. VI. 

tion, and the influence which by such means they must 
necessarily have exercised in Ireland. The Irish chroni- 
cles and pedigrees teach us that frieudly connections and 
reciprocal marriages increased more and more between the 
Irish and the Ostmen, both in Ireland and Norway, so that 
the Irish aristocracy became mixed in a considerable 
degree with Norwegian blood. We also learn from the 
same documents that the Ostmen and their kings constantly 
continued to ally themselves with Irish princes, whose 
power they often essentially contributed to support. The 
Irish king Konofogr gained a naval battle in Ulfreksfjord 
against Einar, jarl of Orkney, because, as it is stated, the 
Norwegian Viking, Eyvind Urarhorn, had joined the former 
with his ships. When King Magnus Barfod of Norway 
undertook his expedition to Ireland, he concluded an 
alliance with Myrjartak, King of Connaught (0. N., 
" Kunnaktir "), whose daughter, Biadmynja, was married 
to Magnus Barfod's son Sigurd. But when Magnus fell 
in Ulster (in 1103), Sigurd abandoned Biadmynja. Yet 
the connections formed in Ireland by Magnus through this 
expedition produced important results for Norway. An 
Irishman named Harald Gille came forward and passed 
himself off for a son of that monarch by an Irishwoman ; 
and after proving his descent by walking over red-hot iron, 
actually became king of Norway, and left its throne as an 
inheritance to his family. 

The Ostmen settled in Dublin and other places in Ire- 
land were more and more induced to form connections 
with native Irish princes, nay, even sometimes to submit 
to them, as the support which they derived from their own 
country continually decreased during the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries. Shortly after the battle of Clontarf, 
Christianity was introduced into the Scandinavian North, 
and thus an end was put to the Vikings' expeditions, 
which had hitherto incessantly brought colonists and 
auxiliary forces into Ireland. Even the reinforcements 
which the Ostmen were able to obtain from their country- 



Sect. VI.] OSTMEN IN DUBLIN. 347 

men in Man, the Sudreyjar, and the Orkneys, were natur- 
ally not so important as before; since on these islands 
also Christianity gradually annihilated the bold Viking 
spirit of the people. 

Under such circumstances it is surprising that Godfrecl 
(or Godred) Merenagh, king of the Ostmen in Dublin, had 
in the year 1095 a naval force of not fewer than ninety 
ships in the harbour of Dublin ; and that the land forces 
of the Ostmen in that city were proportionately powerful. 
The Irish chronicles mention many battles in the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries in which the Dublin Ostmen brought 
numerous warriors into the field, and in which they often 
suffered very considerable loss, without, however, being 
entirely annihilated or driven out of the town. Even in 
the year 1167, and consequently a hundred and fifty years 
after the battle of Clontarf, a great meeting of the Irish 
people was held by Athboy of Tlactga, at which, the Irish 
themselves say, thousands of the first Ostmen in Dublin 
were present. 

That this account is not exaggerated, and that the 
number of Ostmen in Dublin, as well as in the other Irish 
cities, was really very considerable at the close of the 
twelfth century, is clearly shown by the notorious fact, that 
when the English, under Earl Strongbow and Miles de 
Cogan, obtained, in the years 1170 and 1171, afirm footing 
in Ireland, the Ostmen in Dublin, Limerick, and Cork, 
were able to offer a very powerful resistance. Respecting 
the conquest of Dublin by the English we find the follow- 
ing statement in the " Dublin Annals " (by O'Donovan): — 

"The year 1170. The Danes of Dublin were trea- 
cherously slaughtered in their own garrison by Mac 
Morough and the English ; and they carried away their 
cattle and their riches. Asgal, the son of Reginald, king 
of the Danes in Dublin, fled from them. 

"1171. A battle was fought at Dublin, between Miles 
de Cogan and Asgal, son of Reginald, king of the Danes 






348 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. &Sect.TX. 

of Dublin. Many fell on both sides, both of the English 
archers and of the Danes ; among whom was Asgal him- 
self, and Hoan, a Dane from the Orkney Isles," 

On this occasion Asgal, or " Hasculph," is said to have 
returned to the city with sixty ships. His warriors, say 
the chronicles, were accoutred, according to the usual cus- 
tom of the Danes, in armour and coats of mail, and had 
red circular shields bound with iron. But though these 
men were "just as steeled in soul as in arms " (homines 
tarn animisferrei quam armis), and though, as well as- their 
brethren in Limerick and Cork, they fought the fight of 
desperation in defence of their property and liberties, yet 
they were not able to withstand the English. Thus these 
new conquerors succeeded in annihilating the dominion of 
the Ostmen in Ireland, or rather in the most important 
cities of that country, after it had lasted above three 
hundred years, 

Nevertheless we must not believe that the Ostmen were 
even now wholly expelled from Ireland, or that their in- 
fluence there was entirely at an end. After the taking of 
Dublin by the English, so many Ostmen still remained in 
the city that "the Galls of Dublin" continued to have 
their own separate army, which even seems to have acted 
pretty independently of the English conquerors. An 
Irish chronicle (Annals of the Four Masters) states that 
Mulrony OT\eary, Lord of Carbury, was treacherously- 
slain by the "Dublin Ostmen" in the year 1174, and 
consequently some years after the taking of Dublin. In 
the same year the English themselves were forced to 
obtain the assistance of the " Dublin Ostmen " against 
the Irish ; and it is expressly stated that in a subsequent 
attack of the Irish on this united Anglo-Norwegian 
army not far from Dublin, there fell no fewer than "four 
hundred Ostmen." The contemporary author, Giraldus 
Cambrensis, to whom we owe this account, also speaks of 
the Ostmen, after the conquest of Ireland, as a peculiar and 



Sect. VI.] HENEY II. 's OEDINANCE. 349 

decidedly separate people, who carried on trade and 
navigation (" gens igitur hsec, qua3 nunc Ostmannica 
gens vocatur," &c). 

Even more than a century afterwards we can still trace 
many Ostmen in the chief cities of Ireland, where, it 
seems, they continued to preserve those Scandinavian 
characteristics which distinguished them from the Irish 
and English. In the year 1201 a verdict was pronounced 
by twelve Irishmen, twelve Englishmen, and twelve 
Ostmen in Limerick, concerning the lands, churches, and 
other property belonging to the church of Limerick ; which 
shows that the Ostmen were sufficiently numerous there 
to be placed on an equal footing with the English and 
Irish. There is in the Tower of London a document of 
the year 1283, issued by the English king Edward I., 
ordering that the Ostmen in Waterford (" Custumanni," 
Oustumanni, Austumanni ?) should, pursuant to King 
Henry the Second's ordinance, have, and be judged by, 
the same laws as the English settled in Ireland, which 
clearly indicates that the Ostmen at that time still formed 
a distinct and separate people. We might almost believe 
that the Ostmen in Waterford had even refused to ob- 
serve the English laws, or that at least there was a doubt 
how far these laws could be applied to them ; since King 
Edward found it necessary to enforce Henry the Second's 
ordinance, and to enjoin his chief justice and magistrates 
in Ireland that the three men named in the document 
should, "like other Ostmen in Waterford," be judged, and 
as far as possible (" quautum in vobis est "), punished, 
according to the laws in force for Englishmen in Ireland. 
(See the Latin document in the Appendix.) The striking 
historical account that in the year 1263 the Irish applied 
to the Norwegian king Hakon Hakonson, then lying with 
his fleet on the south-west coast of Scotland, for assistance 
against the English, will now no longer be inexplicable 
or improbable ; for it is placed beyond all doubt that 
amongst the Irish who thus in vain implored King Hakon 



350 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. VI. 

for help, there must have been a number of the Ostmen 
still living in Ireland, who naturally continued to main- 
tain a connection with their countrymen in the Norwegian 
kingdoms on the south-west coast of Scotland, until these 
kingdoms also were destroyed in the middle ages. 

But from this time forward the " Ostmen " do not play 
any prominent part in the history of Ireland. Their poli- 
tical independence was annihilated ; and their national cha- 
racteristics were not sufficiently supported by fresh arrivals 
from the mother-country, to enable them in the long run 
to maintain a distinct position in face of the rapidly ad- 
vancing English nationality. Their descendants continued, 
nevertheless, to dwell in Ireland ; where they gradually be- 
came amalgamated partly with the English conquerors and 
partly with the native Irish. The Irish chronicles point 
out various clans in Ireland which were either of Nor- 
wegian descent, or at all events had been much mixed 
with Norwegian blood. In the annals and pedigrees of 
the middle ages we also meet with both laymen and clergy 
in Ireland bearing Scandinavian names. For instance, in 
Christ Church in Dublin, built by the Norwegians, canons 
and monks are spoken of in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries called " Harrold," " Olof," " Siwird " (Sivard), 
" Regenald," (Ragnvald) " Iwyr," &c, names entirely 
unknown in Ireland previously to the arrival of the Nor- 
wegians. The often-mentioned Irish chronicler makes use 
of a highly-remarkable expression. In stating that most 
of the merchants' families in Dublin in his time (about 
the year 1650) were descendants of the Norwegian-Irish 
king Olaf Kvaran, by Brian Boroihma's (Boru's) daughter 
Save, he adds : " and the descendants of that Amlave 
Cuaran are still in Dublin opposing the Gadelians of 
Erinn : " whence we clearly see that national distinctions 
and national disputes between the descendants of the 
Irish and of the Norwegians, w r ere still very prominent only 
two hundred years ago, or full six hundred years after the 
battle of Clontarf (1014). 



Sect. VI.] NORWEGIAN-IKISH FAMILY. NAMES. 351 

Even to the present day we can follow, particularly in 
Leinster, the last traces of the Ostmen through a similar 
series of peculiar family names, which are hy no means 
Irish, but clearly original Norwegian names ; for instance, 
Mac Hitteric or Shiteric (son of Sigtryg), O'Bruadair 
(son of Broder), Mac Eagnall (son of Kagnvald), Roailb 
(Rolf), Auleev (Olaf), Manus (Magnus), and others. It is 
even asserted that among the families of the Dublin mer- 
chants are still to be found descendants of the old Nor- 
wegian merchants formerly so numerous in that city. 
The names of families adduced in confirmation of this, as 
Harrold (Harald), Iver (Ivar), Cotter or Mac Otter (Ottar), 
and others, which are genuine Norwegian names, cor- 
roborate the assertion that Norwegian families appear to 
have propagated themselves uninterruptedly in Dublin 
down to our times, as living evidences of the dominion 
which their forefathers once exercised there. 

It is thus satisfactorily proved, by notorious facts of the 
most various kinds, that for more than three hundred years 
the Norwegians lived according to their own manners and 
customs, and under their own bishops and kings, in the 
most important towns of Ireland, which they in part ruled, 
down to the time of the English conquest (1170); that 
they w r ere the first who minted coins, and carried- on any 
considerable trade and navigation in Ireland ; and lastly, 
that great numbers of their descendants continued to re- 
side in that country even after it had long been conquered by 
the English. No impartial person, therefore, will be able any 
longer to deny that the settlements of the Ostmen, al- 
though commenced by the frequent demolition of churches 
and convents, were ultimately in the most essential matters 
particularly fortunate for Ireland ; since, by introducing 
trade and navigation to an extent before unknown, they 
opened for that sequestered country channels of animated 
communication and intercourse with the rest of Europe 
and its continually advancing civilization. The Irish towns 
occupied by the Ostmen, which have continued to be the 



352 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. fSect. VI. 

principal depots for foreign merchandise, and consequently 
also the central points of intercourse with foreign countries, 
may with justice be said to be indebted chiefly to that 
people for their present greatDess, wealth, and power. 

Nor, on a larger historical survey, will it appear less 
evident that, as the Norwegians first opened the way for 
peaceful connections between Ireland and the rest of 
Europe, so they also facilitated the English conquest. 
In consequence both of their frequent wars, and of their 
frequent alliances with Irish kings, party feeling had rather 
increased thau diminished among the Irish chiefs ; whilst 
numerous Irish families, even the greatest in the land, 
had by degrees become so much mixed with Norwegian 
blood, that the strength of the Irish as a nation was not a 
little weakened and divided. This was particularly the 
case in those districts of the east coast of Ireland where 
the English or Norman power afterwards obtained its chief 
seat. Add to this that the Irish, through the long do- 
minion of the Norwegians in their chief towns, and the 
advantages which they reaped from it, had become more 
and more accustomed to behold with indifference the sway 
of strangers in their country ; a circumstance which con- 
tributed to the powerful support given to the English on 
their first invasion of Ireland by several of the native 
chiefs. 

It may possibly be said that the Norwegians in Ireland, 
by thus preparing the way for the Norman or English 
conquest, rendered a far greater service to England than 
to subjugated Ireland. But all the chronicles, it must be 
recollected, bear witness that the Irish were neither strong 
enough to govern their own country independently, nor 
capable of keeping pace with the advance of European 
civilization by means of an active commerce. We have 
seen that even in later times the same baleful and sangui- 
nary spirit of dissension which weakened Ireland in ancient 
days is yet scarcely extinct among the original Irish race. 
It is manifest, therefore, that Ireland, which would other- 



Sect. VII.] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 353 

wise have been divided from the rest of Europe, and de- 
vastated by terrible intestine contentions, has been much 
benefited by being united to so great and powerful a 
country as England, which has both the ability and the 
will to promote the true welfare of the Irish people. Eng- 
land will, by degrees, employ the great advantages afforded 
by the excellent soil and situation of Ireland, and thus 
conduct that country, torn as it is by all possible distresses 
and misfortunes, to a happier existence. 



Section VII. 



Conclusion. — Warlike and Peaceful Colonizations. — Resemblances and 
Differences. — Before and Now. 

Denmark and Norway, as is known, are not distinguished 
by any remarkable extent of fertile and densely-populated 
country. The whole population in both those kingdoms 
does not at present amount to three millions; and in 
ancient times it scarcely seems to have been greater, even 
when the southern portion of the present kingdom of 
Sweden still belonged to Denmark. 

Nevertheless, Denmark and Norway were able, in an- 
cient times, to send forth great multitudes of people to 
other countries. Not only were Greenland, Iceland, the 
Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, and Faroe Isles, colonized 
from Norway, but also considerable districts in Scotland 
and Ireland. Many Norwegians, moreover, settled in 
England and Normandy. At the same time Danes emi- 
grated in great numbers to Normandy, North Holland, 
and especially England, where they colonized, we may say, 
the whole of the extensive district to the north of Watlinga- 
Strset, or almost half England. 

We are not informed that Denmark and Norway were 
emptied of their population in consequence of these great 
emigrations, or even that there was any sensible want of 



354 THE NOKWEGIANS IN IKELAND. [Sect. VII. 

inhabitants to supply agricultural labourers and soldiers. 
In the immediately following centuries Denmark was 
powerful enough to make the Baltic a Danish lake. We 
can hardly, therefore, assume, like the monkish chronicles 
of antiquity, which naturally breathe both fear and hatred 
of the Scandinavian heathens, that the Norwegians and 
Danes were merely barbarous Vikings, who procured 
themselves a footing in the western countries only through 
brute force. On such grounds we should be perfectly 
unable to explain satisfactorily how Denmark and Norway, 
with a proportionately small population, should have been 
able (without becoming too depopulated) to send out at 
once such a host of people as were evidently required to 
take possession, by force of arms, of those rich western 
lands, and also, it must be observed, to maintain their 
conquests for centuries. If, instead of blindly following 
these partial and prejudiced chroniclers, we adhere to what 
the traces of the nature and importance of the Scandina- 
vian emigrations clearly prove, namely, that from the 
eighth to the twelfth century, and contemporary with the 
destructive Viking expeditions, peaceful emigrations from 
the North constantly took place — which, in reality, were 
just as effective, perhaps even more so, than the purely 
warlike expeditions of conquest — this matter will be placed 
in a far more probable and intelligible point of view. As 
we have seen, sagacity and the arts of peace, together with 
navigation and trade, in no slight degree assisted the 
Danes and Norwegians to procure a footing in the British 
Islands, and especially in England and Ireland. By 
perseverance and ability in the occupations of peace as 
well as war, they were soon enabled to gain the ascendancy 
in the most important seaport towns ; whence, by means 
of various connections of trade, friendship, and family 
alliances, they extended their influence and dominion 
over the adjacent towns and districts. They gradually 
multiplied themselves, and were joined by fresh immi- 
grants ; and thus the foundations were almost impercep- 



sect. VII.] EFFECTS OF SCANDINAVIAN COLONIZATION. 355 

tibly laid of Scandinavian colonies, which awaited only the 
coming of some bold military adventurer to appear as inde- 
pendent, nay, even as dominant states. The great warriors 
to whom history assigns the honour of the conquests in 
England and Ireland — and, we may also add, Normandy — 
would scarcely have been able to obtain them with the 
generally inferior numbers under their command, had not 
the Scandinavian merchants, and other peaceful colonists, 
both opened the way for them, and afterwards supported 
the conquests they had achieved. It is, on the whole, 
obvious that the ancient Northmen possessed a very great 
talent for colonization, which their kinsmen, the English 
of modern times, seem to have inherited from them. 

But as the Scandinavian colonies in the British Islands 
varied greatly in importance, so also must the effects 
which they produced have been somewhat different. In 
Ireland, as well as in Scotland, where the Norwegians 
met with tribes who, in spite of their apparent Christi- 
anity, stood rather below them in civilization, they kept 
themselves more apart from the natives. In Ireland, es- 
pecially, they dwelt in their own strongly-fortified towns ; 
where, until late in the middle ages, they maintained 
their own characteristic language, manners, customs, and 
laws. But in consequence of this, their Norwegian insti- 
tutions had no real influence on the development of the 
national life or institutions of Ireland. At most they 
merely contributed to facilitate the introduction and es- 
tablishment of the analogous Anglo-Norman institutions 
into the Irish cities. In England, on the contrary, where 
the Scandinavian colonies were far more numerous and 
powerful than in Scotland and a Ireland, the Danish colo- 
nists certainly sought, after the Scandinavian fashion, to 
maintain in the midst of a foreign country their pure 
Danish laws, manners, and customs. Yet here the Danes, 
owing to the superior civilization which prevailed among 
the earlier Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England, were soon 
influenced by their language and culture, and became more 



356 THE NORWEGIANS IN IRELAND. [Sect. VII. 

and more amalgamated with them. Nevertheless the 
Danes in England were sufficiently numerous and inde- 
pendent to maintain the most important of their free Scan- 
dinavian characteristics, which coalesced with, and by- 
degrees visibly impressed themselves upon, the more 
modern English manners and institutions. 

The Danish colonies in England, and the Norwegian 
colonies in Scotland and Ireland, had so far the same his- 
torical importance that they essentially conduced to found 
a new life, both externally and internally, in the British 
Islands, partly by extending trade and navigation, partly 
by subduing, or at least weakening, the power of the Anglo- 
Saxons, the Scotch, and the Irish, and thus in general 
preparing for a kindred race (the Normans) the do- 
minion over all these people. It is well known that the 
Norman sway and the Norman spirit established them- 
selves in Scotland and Ireland far later than in England — 
a circumstance chiefly owing to the conquests and settle- 
ments of the Norwegians in those countries having been 
far less extensive and important than the Danish con- 
quests in England. Yet that the Danish-Norman spirit 
predominating in England has been able to maintain to 
our times its dominion in Scotland and Ireland also, is no 
slight evidence of the excellent and solid manner in which 
the Norwegians must originally have prepared the way. 

I have shown that the memorials of the great exploits 
performed by the Danes and Norwegians in the British 
Islands still appear as fresh and vivid as if they were of 
modern date. In this respect, the national pride of those 
nations will find complete gratification. Still, however, it 
is possible that a general view of the mighty achievements 
of the ancient Northmen in the western lands may awaken 
mingled feelings in many a Scandinavian of the present 
day. The thought may involuntarily arise in him of what 
the North was, when its victorious fleets appeared in the 
north, south, east, and west, and when Scandinavians exer- 
cised dominion far and wide, and what it is now — confined 



II.] CONCLUSION. 357 

within narrow boundaries, menaced from many quarters, 
and without any preponderating influence on the state of 
Europe. Beyond the precincts of the North, he will no 
longer hear his native language, which in former times fre- 
quently resounded on foreign shores. The North was forced 
to shed some of its best and noblest blood ; and yet the 
Northman must now be content, if he can succeed in 
tracing out, by means of a few words in the popular lan- 
guage, by the names of towns and districts, or by half- 
erased runic inscriptions on bauta stones, where it was 
that the " Danish tongue" once prevailed, and where the 
barrows still rise which cover the race that spoke it. 

But such morbid complaints will necessarily vanish 
when the Scandinavian considers how vividly the ancient 
power of his race has again displayed itself to the world, 
and how mighty have been the results of the Norman 
expeditions ; but especially when he ponders on the noto- 
rious fact, that the North sent out the flower of its youth 
and strength, not merely to destroy and plunder, but 
rather to lay the foundations of a fresher life in the 
western lands, and thus to impart a new and powerful im- 
pulse to human civilization. In our times, besides, it is 
not chiefly in conquests and the lustre of external great- 
ness that the true happiness and glory of a nation should 
be sought. 

A people, which, like the Scandinavian, have pre- 
served — together with the memorials of former great 
achievements, and of conquests bringing blessings in their 
train — enough of the character and courage of their fore- 
fathers, not only to maintain the freedom and indepen- 
dence of their country, but also, in comparison with other 
nations, an honourable place in science and art, cannot 
justly be said to want either glory or happiness. 



358 



APPENDIX I. 



DOCUMENT OF EDWARD L, OF THE YEAR 1283, 

CONCERNING THE OSTMEN IN WATERFORD AND IRELAND. 

{From a Register in the Tower of London ; Patent Roll II. Edward I. 
Memo. 9. Communicated hy Mr. Duffus Hardy.) 

"Pro Custumannis* Waterfordi in Hibernia. Rex Justiciario 
suo Hibernie et omnibus aliis Ballivis et fidelibus suis Hibernie 
ad quos, &c, salutem. Quia per inspeccionem carte Domini 
Henrici Regis, filii Imperatricis, quondam Domini Hibernie 
preavi nostri, nobis constat quod Custumanni nostri Water- 
ford legem Anglicorum in Hibernia habere et secundum ipsam 
legem judicari et deduci debent. Yobis mandamus quod Gille- 
crist Makgillemory, William Makgillemory, et Johannem 
Makgillemory, et alios Custumannos de Civitate et Communis 
tate Waterford, qui de predictis Custumannis predicti domini 
regis preavi nostri originem duxerunt legem Anglicorum in 
partibus illis juxta tenorem carte predicte habere et eos 
secundum ipsam legem quantum in vobis est deduci faciatis, 
donee aluid de consilio nostro inde duximus ordinandum. In 
cujus, <fcc. ... v. die Octobr." 



APPENDIX n. 



COINAGE OF THE NORWEGIANS IN DUBLIN. 

(See page 338.) 

While this work was going through the press, a silver coin, 
forming an entirely new and highly remarkable contribution 

* This is undoubtedly an old fault in the way of writing or reading 
for " Oustumannis," " Austumannis." That the word is at all events 
meant to signify the Ostmen is also assumed in Sir John Davies' 
" Reports" (fol. 236). 



APPENDIX. 



359 



to our knowledge of the early Norwegian coinage in the capital 
of Ireland, was discovered among the collection bequeathed 
by the late Mr. DeYegge to the Royal Cabinet of Coins in 
Copenhagen. It is represented in the annexed woodcut. 




The legend on the obverse is " Oolaf i divielin" or " Olaf 
in Dublin." That on the reverse almost seems to be " Oolaf n 
mefeci(t)" or " Olaf made me ;" in which case the coiner must 
have had the same Scandinavian name as the king. However 
this may be, it is clear enough that the coin owes its origin to 
a Norwegian or Scandinavian king Olaf in Dublin ; and, as 
the stamp shows, it must have been struck in the tenth cen- 
tory. It thus forms a link between the runic coin of Canute 
in Dublin, and the somewhat later coins of Sigtryg, before 
described. (See p. 338, et seq.) 

A great number of coins have been mentioned as minted in 
Ireland by Scandinavian kings named Olaf; but that above 
delineated is in reality the first, and, as far as is known, the 
only one on which we can with certainty read "Olaf in 
Dublin." 

Kings of that name are mentioned in the Irish chronicles in 
the years 853, 934, 954, 962, &c. (See the list of Norwegian 
Kings in Ireland, p. 317.) 



G. Woodfall & Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street. 



50, Albemarle Street, London'. 
April, 1852. 



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14 LIST OF WORKS 



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16 LIST OF WORKS 



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PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 17 



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c 



18 LIST OF WORKS 



HOME AND COLONIAL LIBRARY. Complete in 76 Parts. 
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JOURNALS IN INDIA. By Bishop Heber. (Four Parts.) 

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND. By Captains Irby and Mangles. 

THE SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR. By John Drinkwater. 

MOROCCO AND THE MOORS. By J. Drummond Hay. 

LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. By a Lady. 

THE AMBER WITCH. By Lady Duff Gordon. 

OLIVER CROMWELL & JOHN BUNYAN. By Robert Soitthey. 

NEW SOUTH WALES. By Mrs. Meredith. 

LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. By John Barrow. 

FATHER RIPA'S MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF CHINA. 

A RESIDENCE IN THE WEST INDIES. By M.G.Lewis. 

SKETCHES OF PERSIA. By Sir John Malcolm. (Two Parts.) 

THE FRENCH IN ALGIERS. By Lady Duff Gordon. 

BRACEBRIDGE HALL. By Washington Irving. (Two Parts.) 

VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST. By Charles Darwin. (Three Parts.) 

HISTORY OF THE FALL OF THE JESUITS. 

LIFE OF LOUIS PRINCE CONDE. By Lord Mahon. (Two Parts.) 

GIPSIES OF SPAIN. By George Borrow. (Two Parts.) 

TYPEE; OR THE MARQUESAS. By Hermann Melville (Two 
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MISSIONARY LIFE IN CANADA. By Rev. J. Abbott. 

SALE'S BRIGADE IN AFFGHANISTAN. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. 

LETTERS FROM MADRAS. By a Lady. 

HIGHLAND SPORTS. By Charles St. John. (Two Parts.) 

JOURNEYS ACROSS THE PAMPAS. By Sir F. B. Head. 

GATHERINGS FROM SPAIN. By Richard Ford. (Two Parts.) 
SIEGES OF VIENNA BY THE TURKS. By Lord Ellesmere. 
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CAMPAIGNS AT WASHINGTON. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. 
ADVENTURES IN MEXICO. By G. F. Ruxton. (Two Parts.) 
PORTUGAL AND GALLICIA. By Lord Carnarvon. (Two Parts.) 
LIFE OF LORD CLIVE. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. (Two Parts.) 
TALES OF A TRAVELLER. By Washington Irving. (Two Parts.) 
SHORT LIVES OF THE POETS. By Thomas Campbell. (Two Parts.) 
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LONDON & NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY. By Sir F. B. Head. 
ADVENTURES IN THE LYBIAN DESERT. By Bayle St. John. 
A RESIDENCE AT SIERRA LEONE. By a Lady. (Two Parts.) 
LIFE OF GENERAL MUNRO. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. (Two Parts.) 
MEMOIRS OF SIR FOWELL BUXTON. (Three Parts.) 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. By Washington Irving. (Two Parts.) 






PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 19 



HONEY BEE (The). An Essay Keprinted from the " Quarterly 

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20 LIST OF WORKS 



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PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 21 

LATIN ACCIDENCE; or, Elements of the Latin Tongue, for the 

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LAYAED'S (Austen H.) Nineveh and its Kemains. Being a 

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> Popular Account of his Eesearches at Nineveh, 

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Monuments of Nineveh. Illustrated by One Hundred 



Engravings. Imperial Folio, 101. 10s.; or Colombier folio, 14Z. 14s. 

Fresh Discoveries at Nineveh, and Eesearches at 

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Kurdistan, and the Borders of the Euphrates. With many Woodcuts. 
2 Vols. 8vo. In the Press. 

- Illustrations of Yases, Sculptures, and Bronzes recently 

Discovered at Nineveh and Babylon, principally Bas-Reliefs of the Wars 
and Exploits of Sennacherib from his Palace at Kouyunjik. Imperial 
Colombier. Folio. Nearly Ready. 

LETTERS FROM THE SHOEES OF THE BALTIC. By a 

Lady. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
MADEAS ; or, First Impressions of Life and 

Manners in India. By a Lady. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

SIEEEA LEONE, written to Friends at Home. 



By a Lady. Edited by Mrs. Norton'. Post 8vo. 5s. 
LEWIS' (G. Cornewall) Essay on the Government of Dependencies. 

8vo. 12s. 

History and Antiquities of the Doric Eace. Translated 

from Muller by Henry Tufnell and George Cornewall Lewis. 
Second Edition. Maps. 2 Vols. 8vo. 26s. 

Glossary of Provincial Words used in Herefordshire and 

some of the adjoining Counties. 12mo. 4s. 6d. 

Essay on the Origin and Formation of the Romance 

Languages : containing an Examination of M. Raynouard's Theory on 
the Relation of the Italian, Spanish, Provencal, and French to the Latin. 
Second Edition. 8vo. 12s. 

(Lady Theresa) Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries 

of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, illustrative of Portraits in his Gallery. 
With an Introduction, containing a Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures, 
and an Account of the Origin of the Collection. Portraits. 3 Vols. 
Svo. 42s. 

(M. G.) Journal of a Eesidence among the Negroes in the 

West Indies. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

LEXINGTON (The) PAPEES ; or, Some Account of the Courts 

of London and Vienna at the end of the 17th Century. Extracted from 
the Official and Private Correspondence of Robert Sutton ("Lord 
Lexington) while Minister at Vienna, 1694-1698. Edited by Hon. H. 
Manners Sutton. Svo. 14s. 



22 LIST OF WORKS 



LINDSAY'S (Lord) Sketches of the History of Christian Art. 

3 Vols. 8vo. 31s. Qd. 

Lives of the Lindsays ; or, a Memoir of the Houses 

of Crawford and Balcarres. To which are added, Extracts from the 
Official Correspondence of Alexander, sixth Earl of Balcarres. during 
the Maroon War ; together with Personal Narratives, by his Brothers, 
the Hon. Robert, Colin, James, John, and Hugh Lindsay; and by his 
Sister, Lady Anne Barnard. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 

Progression by Antagonism, A Theory, involving 



Considerations touching the Present Position, Duties, and Destiny of 
Great Britain. 8vo. 6s. 

(Rev. Henry) Practical Lectures on the Historical 



Books of the Old Testament. 2 Vols. 16mo. 10s. 

LITTLE ARTHUR'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Lady 

Callcott. Fifteenth Edition. 18mo. 2s. Qd. 

LIYONIAN TALES.— The Disponent.— The Wolves.— The Jewess. 

By the Author of " Letters from the Baltic." Post 8vo. 2s. Qd. 
LOCH'S (Capt. G. C.) Events of the Closing Campaign in China. 

Map. Post 8vo. 8s. 6c?. 
LOCKH ART'S (J. G.) Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and 

Romantic, Translated, with Notes. New Edition, with Illuminated 
Titles, Borders, &c. 4to. 

Life of Robert Burns, Fifth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 

History of the Late War : with Sketches of Nelson, 

Wellington, and Napoleon. 18mo. 2s. Qd. 
LONG'S (George) Essays on the Conduct of Life, and Moral Nature 

of Man. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 6s. each. 
LOUDON'S (Mrs.) Instructions in Gardening for Ladies. With 

Directions for Every Month in the Year, and a Calendar of Operations. 

Eighth Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. 
Modern Botany for Ladies ; or, a Popular Introduction 

to the Natural System of Plants. Second Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 

6s. 

LOWE'S (General Sir Hudson) Letters and Journals, revealing 

the true History of Napoleon during his Captivity at St. Helena. Portrait. 
3 Vols. Svo. In Preparation. 

LUSHINGTON'S (Mrs.) Narrative of a Journey from Calcutta 

to Europe, by way of Egypt. Second Edition. Post Svo. 8s. Qd. 

LYELL'S (Sir Charles) Principles of Geology; or, the Modern 
Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants considered as illustrative of 
Geology. Eighth Edition. Woodcuts. Svo. ISs. 

Manual of Elementary Geology ; or, the Ancient Changes 

of the Earth and its Inhabitants illustrated by its Geological Monuments. 
Fourth Edition. Woodcuts. Svo. 12s. 

■ Travels in North America, 1841-2; with Observations on 

the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia. Plates. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 21s. 
Second Yisit to the United States of North America, 



1845-6. Second Edition. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 18s. 

MACCULLOCH'S (J. R.)} Edition of Ricardo's Political Works. 

With a Notice of his Life and Writings. 8vo. 16s. 






PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 



MACFARLANE'S (Charles) Travels in Turkey during the Years 

1847-8, made on purpose to examine into the True State of that Country. 

2Vols.8vo. 28s. 
MAHON'S (Lord) History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht 

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6 Vols. 8vo. 82s. 

" Forty-Five ; " or, a Narrative of the Rebellion in 

Scotland. Post Svo. 3s. 

History of the War of the Succession in Spain. Second 



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Life of Louis Prince of Cond6, surnamed the Great. 

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Life of Belisarius. Second Edition. Post 8vo. 10s. Qd. 



MALCOLM'S (Sir John) Sketches of Persia. Third Edition. 

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MANTELL'S (Gideon A.) Thoughts on Animalcules ; or, the 
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MARKHAM'S (Mrs.) History of England. From the First Inva- 
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Reign. New Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. Qd. 

History of France. From the Conquest by the Gauls, 

to the Death of Louis Philippe. New Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. Qd. 
History of Germany. From the Invasion by Marius, 



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History of Rome and Greece. 12mo. In Preparation. 

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MARKLAND'S (J. H.) Remarks on English Churches, and on 
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MARRYAT'S (Joseph) Collections towards a History of Pottery 

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MARRYAT'S ANCIENT POTTERY; Egyptian, Asiatic, Greek, 
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MATTHIAS'S (Augustus) Greek Grammar for Schools. Abridged 
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revised by Rev. J. Edwards. 12mo. 3s. 



24 LIST OF WORKS 



MATTHIAS'S Greek Accidence for Schools. Abridged by the 
Bishop of London. Fourth Edition, revised by Rev. J.Edwards. 12mo. 2s. 

Index of Quotations from Greek Authors contained 

in Mattbiae's Greek Grammar. Second Edition. 8vo. 7s. 6d. 

MATTE'S (H. L.) Journal of a Passage from the Pacific to the 
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descending the great River Maranon. 8vo. 12s. 

MAXIMS AND HINTS for an Angler, and the Miseries of 

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Bv Richaed Penn. Second Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 5s. 
MAYO'S (Dr.) Elements of the Pathology of the Human Mind. 
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MELYILLE'S (Hermann) Typee and Omoo; or, Adventures 

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MENDELSSOHN'S (Felix Bartholdy) Life. By Jules Benedict. 

8vo. 2s. 6d. 

MERRIFIELD (Mrs.) Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting 

in Oil, Miniature, Mosaic, and on Glass ; of Gilding, Dyeing, and the 
Preparation of Colours and Artificial Gems, described in several un- 
published Manuscripts, dating from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth 
Centuries. Preceded by a General Introduction, with Translations, 
Preface, and Notes. 2 Vols. Svo. 30s. (Published by Authority.) 

MEREDITH'S (Mrs. Charles) Notes and Sketches of New South 

Wales, during a Residence from 1S39 to 1S44. Post Svo. 2s. Qd. 
MILFORD'S (John) Norway and her Laplanders in 1841 ; with a 

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MITCHELL'S (Thomas) Plays of Aristophanes. With English 

Notes. Svo.— 1. CLOUDS, 10s.— 2. WASPS, 10s.— 3. FROGS, 15s. 
MODERN DOMESTIC COOKERY. Founded on Principles of 

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MILMAN'S (Dean of St. Paul's) History of Christianity, from the 

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3 Vols. Svo. 36s. 

Edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman 

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6 Vols. Svo. 31. 3s. 

Life and Correspondence of Edward Gibbon. Portrait. 



8vo. 9s. 

Life and Works of Horace. Illustrated with Statues, 

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Crown 8vo. 42s. 

Poetical Works. Second Edition. Plates. 3 Yols. 



Fcap. 8vo. ISs. 

Character and Conduct of the Apostles Considered as 

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Svo. 10s. 6d. 

MILMAN'S (Capt. E. A.) Wayside Cross ; or, the Raid of Gomez. 

A Tale of the Carlist War. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
MOORE'S (Thomas) Life and Letters of Lord Byron. With 

Notes and Illustrations. Library Edition. Plates. 6 Vols. Fcap. Svo. 18s. 
Complete in One Yolume. 

Portrait and Vignette. Royal Svo. 12s. 



PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 25 

MUCK MANUAL (The) for the Use of Farmers. A Practical Treatise 
on the Chemical Properties, Management, and Application of Manures. 
By Frederick Falkner. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 

MUIRHEAD (J. P.). James Watt, an Historical Eloge. By M. 

Arago. Translated, with Notes. 8vo, 8s. 6d. ; or 4to, 21s. 
Correspondence of James Watt on his Discovery of 

the Theory of the Composition of Water, with a Letter from his Son. 

Portrait. 8vo, 10s 6d. ; or 4to, 24s. 
MULLER'S DORIANS ; The History and Antiquities of the Doric 

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Second Edition. Maps. 2 Vols. 8vo. 26s. 
MUNDY'S (Capt. Rodney) Events in Borneo, including the 

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MUNRO'S (General Sir Thomas) Life and Letters. By the Rev. 

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MURCHISON'S (Sir Roderick) Russia in Europe and the Ural 

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Earlier Forms of Life, as disclosed in the Older 

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MURRAY'S (Capt. A.) Naval Life and Services of Admiral Sir 

Philip Durham. Svo. 5s. 6d, 

MURRAY'S RAILWAY READING. Or Cheap Books in large 

readable type. To be published occasionally, varying in size and price. 

Already published : 
NIMROD ON THE CHACE. Is. 
LITERARY ESSAYS FROM " THE TIMES." 4s. 
MUSIC AND DRESS. Is. 

LAYARD'S POPULAR ACCOUNT OF NINEVEH. 5s. 
NIMROD ON THE ROAD. Is. 

MAHON'S HISTORY OF THE "FORTY-FIVE." 3s. 
LIFE OF THEODORE HOOK. Is. 
DEEDS OF NAVAL DARING. 2s. 6d. 
THE FLOWER GARDEN. Is. 

JAMES' FABLES OF tESOP. 100 Woodcuts. 2s. 6d. 
THE HONEY BEE. Is. 
NIMROD ON THE TURF. Is. 6d. 

MUSIC AND THE ART OF DRESS. Two Essays reprinted from 

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NAUTICAL ALMANACK (The). {Published by Order of the 

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NAYY LIST (The Royal). (Published Quarterly, by Authority.) 

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NEALE'S (E. V.) Feasts and Fasts : an Essay on the Rise, Pro- 
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NEYILLE'S (Hon. Richard Cornwallis) Anglo-Saxon Remains, 
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NEWBOLD'S (Lieut.) Straits of Malacca Penang, Malacca, and 
Singapore. 2 Vols. 8vo. 26*. 



26 LIST OF WORKS 



NIMEOD On the Chace— The Turf— and The Eoad. Eeprinted 
from the "Quarterly Review." Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. Is. each; or 
hound in 1 Vol., 3s. Qd. 

NORTON (The Hon. Mrs.) Letters from Sierra Leone, written to 
Friends at Home. By a Lady. Edited by Mrs. Norton. Post Svo. 5s. 

O'BYENE'S (W. E.) Naval Biographical Dictionary, comprising 
the Life and Services of every Living Officer in H. M. Navy, from the 
Rank of Admiral of the Fleet to that of Lieutenant. Compiled from 
Authentic and Family Documents. Royal 8vo. 42s. 

O'CONNOE'S (E.) Field Sports of France ; or, Hunting, Shooting, 
and Fishing on the Continent. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. Qd. 

OLIPHANT'S (Laurence) Journey to Katmandu, (Capital of 
Nepaul,) with the Camp of Juxg Bahader ; including a Sketch of the 
Nepaulese Ambassador at Home. Fcap. Svo. 

OXENHAM'S (Rev. W.) English Notes for Latin Elegiacs ; designed 

for early Proficients in the Art of Latin Versification, with Prefatory 

Rules of Composition in Elegiac Metre. Second Edition. 12mo. 4s. 
OXFOEDS (Bishop of) Charge to his Clergy at his Second 

Visitation in Nov., 1851. Second Edition. Svo. 3s. 6c?. 
PAGET'S (John) Hungary and Transylvania. With Eemarks on 

their Condition, Social, Political, and Economical. Second Edition. 

Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Svo. 24s. 
PAEISH'S (Sir Woodbine) Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the 

Rio de la Plata. Their First Discovery and Conquest, Present State, 

Trade, Debt, &c. Map and Woodcuts. Svo. 

PAEIS'S (T. C.) Letters from the Pyrenees during Three Months' 

Pedestrian Wanderings amidst the Wildest Scenes of the French and 

Spanish Pyrenees. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 10s. Qd. 
PAEKYNS' (Mansfield) Personal Narrative of a Eesidence in 

Abyssinia. With Maps and Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Svo. In the Press. 
PEILE'S (Eev. Dr.) Agamemnon of iEschylus. A New Edition 

of the Text, with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Philological, for 

the Use of Students. Second Edition. Svo. 9s. 

Choephorse of iEschylus. A New Edition of the Text, 

with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Philological, for the Use of 

Students. Second Edition. 8vo. 9s. 

PELLEW'S (Dean of Norwich) Life of Lord Sidmouth, with 

his Correspondence. Portraits. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
PENN'S (Eichard) Maxims and Hints for an Angler, and the 
Miseries of Fishing. To which is added, Maxims and Hints for a 
Chess-player. Second Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 

(Granville) Bioscope ; or, Dial of Life Explained. To 

which is added, a Translation of St. Paulinus' Epistle to Celantia, on 
the Rule of Christian Life ; and an Elementary View of General Chro- 
nology. Second Edition. With Dial Plate. 12mo. 12s. 

PENEOSE'S (Eev. John) Lives of Yice- Admiral Sir C. Y. Penrose, 
and Captain James Trevenen. Portraits. Svo. 10s. Qd. 

Sermons for Households, or Fifty-four Sermons 

Written for Sunday Reading in Families. Svo, 10s. 6d. 

(F. C.) Principles of Athenian Architecture, and the 



Optical Refinements exhibited in the Construction of the Ancient 
Buildings at Athens, from a Survey. With 40 Plates. Folio. 51. 5s. 
(Published under the direction of the Dilettanti Society). 



PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 27 

PENNINGTON (G. J.) On the Pronunciation of the Greek Lan- 
guage. Svo. 8s. 6d. 

PHILLIPS' (John) Memoirs of William Smith, LL.D., (the Geo- 
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Geology of Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Coast, and 

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PHILOSOPHY IN SPORT MADE SCIENCE IN EAENEST ; 

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Toys and Sports of Youth. Sixth Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 8s. 

PHILPOTT'S (Bishop of Exeter) Letters to the late Charles 

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Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Twenty- 
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Pastoral Letter, addressed to his Clergy, on the Pre- 
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Acts of the Diocesan Synod, held in the Cathedral 



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PHIPPS' (Hon. Edmund) Memoir, Correspondence, Literary and 
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POOLE'S (R. S.) Horae Egyptiacse : or the Chronology of Ancient 
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(Rey. G. A.) Handbook for the Cathedrals of England. 

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POPE'S (Alexander) Works. A New Edition, containing nume- 
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PORTER'S (G. R.) Progress of the Nation, in its various Social and 
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Tfdrd Edition. (1851.) 8vo. 24s. 

POWELL'S (Rev. W. P.) Latin Grammar simplified. 12mo. Zs. Qd. 

PRAYER-BOOK (The), Illuminated with 1000 Illustrations of Bor- 
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Morocco, 42s. 

PUSEY (Philip) On Improvement in Farming ; or What ought 
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PUSS IN BOOTS. Suited to the Tastes of Little and Grown 

Children. By Otto Speckter. Second Edition. Plates. 16mo. 5s. 

QUARTERLY REVIEW (The). 8vo. 6s. 

RANKE'S (Leopold) Political and Ecclesiastical History of the 

Popes of Rome, during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Trans- 
lated from the German by Mrs. Austin. Third Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo. 24s. 

History of Prussia ; or, Memoirs of the House of Bran- 

denburgh. Translated from the German by Sir Alexander Duff 
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History of Servia, and the Servian Revolution. Translated 

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28 LIST OF WORKS 



RAWLINSON'S (Rev. George) Herodotus. A New English 

Version. Translated from the Text of Gaisford, and Edited with 
Notes, illustrating the History and Geography of Herodotus, from the 
most recent sources of information, embodying the chief Results, 
Historical and Ethnographical, which have been arrived at in the 
progress of Cuneiform and Hieroglyphical Discovery. Assisted by 
Colonel Rawlinson, and Sib J. G. Wilkinson. 4 Vols. 8vo. In 

REJECTED ADDRESSES (The). By James and Horace Smith. 

"With Biographies of the Authors, and additional Notes. Twenty-second 
Edition. Portraits. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. 

RICARDO'S (David) Political Works. With a Notice of his 

Life and Writings. By J. R. M'Culloch. 8vo. 16s. 
RIDE on Horseback to Florence through France and Switzerland. 

Described in a Series of Letters. By a Lady. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 18s. 
RIPA'S (Father) Memoirs during Thirteen Years' Residence at the 

Court of Peking, in the Service of the Emperor of China. Translated 

from the Italian. By Fortitnato Prandi. Post 8vo. 2s. Qd. 

ROBERTSON'S (Lord) Leaves from a Journal, and other Fragments 

in Verse. Crown 8vo. 7s. Qd. 

(Rev. J. C.) History of the Christian Church, for 

the Use of Students in Theology, and General Readers. Part I.— To 
the Reformation. 2 Vols. 8vo. In the Press. 

ROMILLY'S (Sir Samuel) Memoirs and Political Diary. By his 
Sons. Third Edition. Portrait. 2 Vols. Fcap. 8vo. 12s. 

ROSS'S (Sir James) Yoyage of Discovery and Research in the 
Southern and Antarctic Regions during the years 1839-43. Plates. 
2 Vols. 8vo. 36s. 

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE (The). Transactions. 

Plates. Vols. I. to III. 8vo. 12s. each. 

RUNDELL'S (Mrs.) Modern Domestic Cookery, founded onPrinciples 
of Economy and Practice, and adapted for Private Families. Entirely 
Revised and corrected to the Present Time, by a Ladt. Woodcuts. 
Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 

RUXTON'S (George F.) Travels in Mexico ; with Adventures 
among the Wild Tribes and Animals of the Prairies and Rocky Moun- 
tains. Post 8vo. 5s. 

SALE'S (Lady) Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan. Eighth 
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(Sir Robert) Brigade in Affghanistan. With an Account 

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SAXON (The) in Ireland. Being Notes of the Rambles of an 

Englishman in the West of Ireland, in search of a Settlement. Second 
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SENTENCES FROM THE PROVERBS. In English, French, 

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16mo. 3s. Qd. 

SCROPE'S (William) Days of Deer-Stalking in the Forest of Atholl ; 
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Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed ; 

with a short Account of the Natural History and Habits of the Salmon, 
and Instructions to Sportsmen, &c. Plates. Royal 8vo. 42s. 



-^ 



PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 29 

SCROPE'S (G. P.) Memoir of Lord Sydenham, and his Administra- 
tion in Canada. Second Edition. Portrait.. 8vo. 9s. 6d. 
SERMON'S. Preached during the "Visitation of the Bishop of 

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SE WELL'S (Rev. W.) Evidences of Christianity ; or, Dialogues 

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SHAW'S (Thos, B.) Outlines of English Literature, for the Use of 

Young Students. Post 8vo. 12s. 
SIDMOUTH'S (Lord) Life and Correspondence. By the Hon. and 

Rev. George Pellew, Dean op Norwich. Portraits. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
SIDNEY'S (Rev. Edwin) Life of Lord Hill. Second Edition. 

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SIERRA LEONE ; Described in a Series of Letters to Friends at 
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SMITH'S (Wm., LL.D.) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Anti- 
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Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and My- 
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Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Woodcuts. 

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New Latin-English Dictionary, founded on the best and 

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Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology, and Geo- 
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(Wm., the Geologist) Memoirs. By John Phillips. 

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(James & Horace) Rejected Addresses. Twenty-second 



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SOMERVILLE'S (Mary) Physical Geography. Third Edition. 
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Connexion of the Physical Sciences. Eighth 

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32 LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 



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